After playing at film festivals, its limited theatrical release began in New York and Los Angeles on June 27, 2012, before expanding to additional markets.
Beasts of the Southern Wild was met with commercial success and acclaim from critics, with praise going to the cinematography and Wallis's performance.
[3][4] Six-year-old Hushpuppy and her ailing, hot-tempered father Wink live in a small community on an island in the Louisiana bayou called the "Bathtub".
She says the cavemen did not bemoan their fate, however, and the students should remember this lesson and learn how to survive, since the fabric of the universe will soon come "unraveled", causing the ice caps to melt and the Bathtub to end up underwater.
As the weather worsens and Hushpuppy watches many residents of the Bathtub fleeing the impending flood, she sees Wink staggering along the side of the road.
The Bathtub floods overnight, and the next day Wink and Hushpuppy tour the devastation and reconnect with the handful of their neighbors who have also stayed behind.
As time passes, it seems likely that she is right, so Wink hatches a plan to drain the water away by blowing a hole in the levee with an alligator gar carcass stuffed with explosives.
While Wink lies dying, Hushpuppy and a few of her friends attempt to swim to a flashing light across the water that she feels might lead her to her absent mother.
The film's fictional setting, "Isle de Charles Doucet", known to its residents as the Bathtub, was inspired by several isolated and independent fishing communities threatened by erosion, hurricanes, and rising sea levels in Louisiana's Terrebonne Parish, most notably the rapidly eroding Isle de Jean Charles.
[11]He read for the part during a slow hour and was chosen, but at the time he was in the middle of moving to a larger building (which would become the Buttermilk Drop Bakery and Café, in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans[12][13]) and the filmmakers had trouble finding him to let him know.
The website's critical consensus reads: "Beasts of the Southern Wild is a fantastical, emotionally powerful journey and a strong case of filmmaking that values imagination over money.
Author and critic A. O. Scott, writing for Times, calls Beasts a blast of sheer, improbable joy, a boisterous, thrilling action movie with a protagonist who can hold her own... Hushpuppy, the 6-year-old heroine of 'Beasts of the Southern Wild,' has a smile to charm fish out of the water and a scowl so fierce it can stop monsters in their tracks.
The movie, a passionate and unruly explosion of Americana, directed by Benh Zeitlin, winks at skepticism, laughs at sober analysis and stares down criticism.
"[18] Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune said that Beasts was "the most divisive film of 2012," opining that "The filmmaker comes from a perspective of great empathy and considerable skill.
The film's screw-tightening methods are so overbearing, the story, the characters, the little girl's plight have to struggle to breathe or develop anything like an inner life.
He adds that "there's no way you won't be captivated by Wallis, chosen ahead of 3,500 candidates to play the tiny folk hero who narrates the story.
"[22] Ebert wrote in his review that Hushpuppy is "played by a force of nature named Quvenzhané Wallis... She is so uniquely and particularly herself that I wonder if the movie would have been possible without her.
"[18] Scott said: "Played by Quvenzhané Wallis, an untrained sprite who holds the camera's attention with a charismatic poise that might make grown-up movie stars weep in envy, Hushpuppy is an American original, a rambunctious blend of individualism and fellow feeling.
[32][33] The script won the 2012 Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.