At this year’s Sundance Festival, Beasts of the Southern Wild — a lo-fi fantasy shot in Louisiana about a young girl surviving a storm directed by first-timer Benh Zeitlin — was an instant hit. It ended up winning the Grand Jury Prize, and then getting scooped up by Fox Searchlight for a couple of million dollars, and then getting a June 27 release date — and, now, a couple months before us peons that don’t get invited to fancy movie festivals get to see exactly what all the hype is about, a trailer has been released. And guess what? This is pretty instantaneously charming! The tiny debut actress, Quvenzhané Wallis, hustles around meeting possibly nefarious characters, hanging with toothy boars, and saying crazy stuff like “The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right — if one piece busts, the entire universe will get busted” — and, somehow, seems completely equipped to pull it off. And, possibly most impressive? There’s even a non-groan-inducing usage of the phrase “I’m the man,” something that hasn’t been seen in the last decade and change. Truly remarkable stuff.
Beasts of the Southern Wild Trailer Resurrects the Phrase ‘I’m the Man’
See the clip.