From NetFlix:

This fantastical drama follows a little girl named Hushpuppy who lives in a dilapidated pocket of homes in the Mississippi Delta. When her father falls ill and natural disasters strike, Hushpuppy sets off to find her long-lost mother.

Netflix’s description above is misleading. Hushpuppy wants to find her mother but that is just a small part of this film, one of the most inventive and original films I have ever seen.

Quvenzhané Wallis portrays Hushpuppy as a defiant, curious, lonely little girl whose father Wink is an unpredictable, at times violent, alcoholic whose wish for his daughter is that she learn to live independently. We understand Wink more as the film progresses.

Even if the film were merely a travelog it would be acceptable. For me the area and characters were an eye-opener. As a city dweller I expect a home to be orderly, clean, and strongly constructed. But the homes we visit are disorderly pig-pens just about ready to fall down of their own accord. As a city dweller I expect people to be sober, hard-working, clean, affectionate persons. But the personalities in this film are hard-drinking, seemingly non-working, dirty humans who are, however, affectionate. Most of all they are determined to stay in their beloved bayou (which they call the “bathtub”) even after a relentless storm has almost completely destroyed their world.

Magic realism enters in the appearance of aurochs who were released by global warming from their prisons of icebergs. These giant beasts (like warthogs) in their roaming represent the violence wrought upon the earth by global warming.

Compare the acting here of Quvenzhané Wallis as Hushpuppy with that of the child Pierce Gagnon as Cid in Looper.

If you have a taste for the unusual, DO NOT MISS THIS FILM!