Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

This is a movie about how the other half lives.  I mena that literally.  This is a story about the people whose stories we really never hear about.  These people are almost invisible to the people who live outside the southern United States.  There are almost no stories about them. They live largely off the grid, in the mangroves.  They live off the land.  So even during the aftermath of Katrina, these are not the people whose plight we saw.

Here is how the story goes.  Six-year old Hushpuppy, played with a surprisingly raw sort of fierceness by Quvenzhané Wallis, is a wild child of the American South. She lives with her father, Wink, played by Dwight Henry in dilapidated trailers--one for him and one for her.  They don't have much.  Nothing is secure--they catch their food.  They have no clothes, running water, no adult supervision to speak of.  WInk is dying and Hushpuppy will soon be on her own.  As if that wasn't bad enough, they live in low lands that are at risk of going completely under as icebergs melt and waters rise and storms become more intense.  It is part fairy tale, part cautionary tale, and part why we absolutely need a social safety net as we sail into the inevitable world we have created with global climate change.  It is primative and wise at the same time.