“Why can’t we save anyone?” Patrick (the mesmerizing Ezra Miller) asks Charlie (Logan Lerman, in an astonishing debut) in Stephen Chbosky‘s film, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (based on the most brilliant novel of the same name, quite possibly the best coming of age story since J.D. Salinger‘s The Catcher In The Rye), and it’s a difficult question indeed. Why can’t we save others? Why can’t we reach out and grab them when we see they’re falling? Why can’t we rescue them from an abusive marriage, friendship, or terrible infatuation?  Why do people choose to love people who can only hurt them in return?  Why do they put up with it?  And finally, why is it so hard for people to hear that they deserve more, that they deserve to loved more wholly, more completely?

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

That’s Charlie’s high school English teacher’s answer to him, and it’s one that he gives later on in the film — just at the moment when he realizes he needs to be learning this lesson himself.  But this isn’t a story about learning quaint life lessons, no sir.  It’s a big, bold, beautiful, infinitely touching and gracefully spot-on portrayal of high school life, at its most frail, its most painfully vulnerable.  It’s that rare high school film that possesses the nostalgic sense of looking back, while at the same time, trying to look forward.

This movie deserves to be seen, to be supported (in theaters) so if you haven’t already seen it, I humbly ask you to go and see it (mainly for adults, but mature college kids will probably find much in it to love, too) — and witness American independent filmmaking, at its finest, purest and most sublime.  Now who could ask for more in a night out at the movies than being able to experience that?  A

Benh Zeitlin‘s Beasts of the Southern Wild is a movie made up of moments.  The 2012 winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival is being hailed by critics (almost every stinking one of them) as “striking”, “poetic,” and “dazzling.”  It is that independent Festival movie darling that must bear the weight of so much praise, so much pre-buzz leading up to its release, one’s expectations can only be met or fall short.  For me, the film fell a tad short.  But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some fascinating things at work here.

Our 6-year-old fearless protagonist Hushpuppy (the mesmerizing Quvenzhane Wallis, who will likely score a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her work here) lives in a separate home by herself next to her father Wink (Dwight Henry), in the mythical place called “The Bathtub” (a metaphor for the city and people of New Orleans).  The film is set before and after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, and is a vivid, often disturbing window into a world rarely seen on screen — the world of a child with no real mother, and no real father.

As much as Zeitlin would like us to believe Wink loves his daughter Hushpuppy, the narrative events unfold (symbolism trumping story almost every step of the way) in a manner that is troubling, hard-to-watch, and depressing.  We know there are a lot of whirling events going on here that are fantastical but what is true — that Hushpuppy’s father is a violent, physically and emotionally abusive child trapped in a dying man’s body —  makes the characters (often) hard to warm up to.  Don’t get me wrong, we feel for Hushpuppy and are fearful of what is to become of her, but as far as the adults in the story, there’s little reason for why they act as pathetic as they do.  It’s not a matter of just their condition, their environment, their way of living that’s different than the outside world’s, but it’s a matter of pure, basic, gut-level humanity.  At the end of the day, are these the kinds of heros Hushpuppy is supposed to grow up, learning from?

As much as I admired Hushpuppy and her three young girlfriends — the images of these four trampling around, as if this “Bathtub” land is now theirs was a thing of beauty to behold — I couldn’t help but be extremely saddened by the environment she was in.  When the film arrives near its end, and the girls stumble into a brothel filled with women — young and old, who seem just as lost as the four of them — you realize just how lost, just how without fathers and mothers these four children are.  In one of the film’s most moving scenes, Hushpuppy utters, “This is my favorite thing — to be lifted.”  In that moment, you realize how much her father has failed her, how much pain this motherless child has endured thus far (and how much more she will endure through the years).  The fact that she can endure is astounding, but the gravity of what her future journey will most likely resemble is daunting, almost hopeless.

For me, Beasts of the Southern Wild works as a thing of cinematic beauty — thanks to incredible cinematography by Ben Richardson, a not-yet-fully-realized disciple of Terrence Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki – as well as a story of a child trying to make sense of catastrophic tragedy amidst the many ‘beasts’ (some real — a violent father, a lost mother, a land that has been ransacked by nature — and some imagined, the prehistoric, mythical aurochs) in her world.  But the film’s greatest accomplishment is that it’s a tender, nuanced meditation on the underclass of parent-less children who must be brought up tough, and self-reliant in order to survive.  This is at the heart of Beasts of the Southern Wild.  This is where the fable-like Bayou story works best.  It’s not only a window into the controversies and levee-conflicts the people of New Orleans (and the U.S. government) experienced, nor is it just a tale of a forgotten people who fiercely and savagely do whatever’s best for their “Bathtub” community.  No, the real wonder and magic of Zeitlin’s vision (albeit, sometimes a redundant one) is how he’s captured the fragility of raising a child in a world with (real and mythical) beasts functioning as the adults.  This is the film’s most effective, most poignant and most fascinating exploration.  And what academics and audiences will be talking most about in the years to come.  Grade: B+

 Once in awhile, a movie comes along that can (somewhat miraculously) restore your faith in cinematic romance, comedy, and pure, character-driven dramas. I’ve seen over a dozen films the past month at the theater but none had me laughing as loud or moved me as much as Lynn Shelton’s indie-adult-charmer, Your Sister’s Sister.

In case you don’t have a clue what this movie’s about, good! I’m not going to spoil a minute of it, as it’s best to go in knowing as little as possible.  Once the film begins, however, you’re whisked away and in the presence of pitch-perfect direction, Oscar-worthy performances, and a brilliant script that never hits a false note.  Emily Blunt, Rosemarie Dewitt and a scene-stealing, sure-to-be career-best performance by Mark Duplass (a Best Actor Oscar nod is beyond deserved for him here) all shine in this triangular-relationship film that is part romantic comedy, part grief-stricken drama, and part brother-brother/sister-sister reconciliation pic.  Like a terrific stage play, it reels you in deeper and deeper into its remote, outskirts-of-Seattle landscape, until something magical happens — you realize the story you’re watching is as just about your family, your relationships with your siblings, as it is about the characters up on screen.

That is no easy feat.

But writer/director Lynn Shelton pulls it off and makes it look easy.  Through total engagement and understanding of her characters — you can tell she loves them dearly — she’s crafted one of the most beautiful stories of the year that genuinely lets each character unwind, unravel, so they can simply be.  It’s that rare indie-film in the vein of Kenneth Lonergan’s lovely, You Can Count On Me that aims to surprise, to charm, to wow (and ‘wow’ does it ever).  By narrowing in on the perfectly fragile, and imperfectly frail desires embedded deep inside the heart, we’re given what I’m sure will be, one of 2012′s best films.

If you’re an adult and appreciate great stories with great characters that don’t just skim the surface of human emotions, then please, find this film and go see it.  You’ll be glad you did.

As the movie ended, I was reminded of how a story so specific, so real, so true can feel so big within a space that feels so small.  No doubt, the landscape is beautiful and the film (shot in only 12 days) is working on a super-tight, super-low budget, but so what.  After watching $200 million dollar budget film after $200 million dollar budget film, I welcome a small movie that makes us feel something real, something true in a mere 90 minutes. Grade: A