Reviews for this film from our members:
- Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
- Excerpt: Tutto il film e’ avvolto in una luce calda e confortante e da una profonda comprensione dell’umanita’ southern, fatta di poche cose semplici, come pollo fritto, pesce e crostacei, stregoneria e superstizione.
- Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Alan Bacchus @ Daily Film Dose
- Jason Bailey @ DVD Talk
- Excerpt: ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’ is a movie that sneaks up on you, and then wrecks you.
- Matthew Blevins @ Nextprojection.com
- Excerpt: Beasts of the Southern Wild is a film of contrasts in diametric opposition of one another that coagulate into a cohesive whole that is allowed to be sentimental without suffering the pitfalls of being overly maudlin, fantasy-laden while firmly planted in a dangerous and unforgiving reality, and beautiful on its own terms while capturing an isolated society poor in conventional terms of wealth and beauty but richer in spirit than the dead souls that live across the levee.
- Luke Bonanno @ DVDizzy.com
- Excerpt: Much of Beasts’ power over us comes from the fact that it is different. Its loose form, documentary-type feel, unbridled authenticity, non-actor cast, and creators’ lack of baggage result in something unlike anything else you’ve seen and certainly from this year.
- Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: This kind of [shaky] camerawork smacks of outright laziness, and there isn’t a single scene where it doesn’t distract from the many lovely things the film gets right.
- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Enrique Buchichio @ Cartelera.com.uy [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Solo por prestar atención a una porción de gente olvidada ya valdría la pena. Pero además es una pequeña gran película que crece a medida que el relato avanza, centrándose en la relación entre un padre y una hija con una intensidad conmovedora.
- Stephen Carty @ Flix Capacitor
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Jim Dixon @ Examiner.com
- Excerpt: The tiny heroine of “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” Hushpuppy, is played by nine year old Quvenzhané Wallis, who most assuredly does not come from the same factory as most Hollywood mass production child stars. Reality pours out of this little girl in torrents, much like the raging flood waters that steer the Odyssey-like plot. The nearly agonizing sincerity of her performance guarantees that this often surreal film remains somehow believable even at its trippiest.
- Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Kimberly Gadette @ doddle
- Excerpt: Amazing to behold, with a knock-out performance by young Wallis, it’s as if the spirit of Maurice Sendak got loopy on a little too much rum while hanging around the bayous and barges of Cajun country.
- Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Craig Kennedy @ Living in Cinema
- Benjamin Kramer @ The Voracious Filmgoer
- Josh Larsen @ LarsenOnFilm.com
- [New – 3/8] | Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight
- Excerpt: The film is told both realistically and metaphorically, the two concepts clashing more frequently than supporting each other.
- Piers Marchant @ Sweet Smell of Success
- Excerpt: A 6-year-old girl becomes her own force of nature in Benh Zeitlin’s celebrated sundance fave.
- Jason McKiernan @ Next Projection
- Excerpt: Beasts operates on the level of a classic deep south folktale, immersing us in a world that is entirely created and yet touches on deeply human tragedies, fears, and hopes. It seamlessly fuses broad fiction with acute reality.
- Ryan McNeil @ The Matinee
- Darren Mooney @ the m0vie blog
- Excerpt: Beasts of the Southern Wild is a technically impressive film, but it remains too shallow to really make much of an impression.
- Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
- Tiago Ramos @ Split Screen [Portuguese]
- Jamie S. Rich @ DVD Talk
- Excerpt: The beauty of the images is almost earnestly insistent, pushing us to think that there is more here than there really is. Most of the characters are base types and get very little personality development, and the themes of death and rebirth lack any meaty exploration. Zeitlin pours any sense of drama he has into the overbearing music, which he also composed with Fire Flies’ frontman Dan Romer. The director lets the mawkish orchestration do most of the emotional work and resorts to an almost insulting level of bombast for the finale. Is it that he doesn’t trust his own script to sell it, or he doesn’t trust the audience to “get it”?
- Jordan Richardson @ Canadian Cinephile
- Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: The best performance of the year comes in a very small package.
- Tom Santilli @ Examiner.com
- Excerpt: Told through the eyes of a child, Beasts of the Southern Wild is strangely optimistic. This tale – told from any other point of view – would almost be so horrible that we may not be able to stomach it.
- Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Quvenzhané Wallis’ childish explanation, ‘once there was a Hushpuppy and she lived with her daddy in the Bathtub’ turns out to be a literal description of the plot in this ridiculously original fairy tale that resembles ‘The Tree of Life’ set in a post-apocalyptic bayou.
- Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: Infuriating, insulting, and bathed in patronizing condescension, “Beasts of the Southern Wild” is a magical realist movie unclear on the concept.
- Frank Swietek @ One Guy’s Opinion
- Jean-François Vandeuren @ Panorama-cinema.com [French]
