3.25 stars (out of 4)

Released 2012

I can’t write about this movie without revealing major spoilers, so be forewarned.

This movie didn’t go where I expected it to go, and the direction it took is not entirely satisfying but did make me think.

It starts out as a survival story about a six-year-old girl, just abandoned by her alcoholic father in an isolated and impoverished community on an island outside of the levees that keep the rest of civilization dry and safe.  The film is intentionally opaque about whether this is meant to be modern times, outside of New Orleans, circa Katrina, or whether this is meant to be a post-apocalyptic time in the near future (I guessed the latter, at first).  They show how this community has developed its own culture which values toughness and celebrates what little they have, and how the little girl has internalized those lessons.

At this point, it is hinted that they would be captured and put into camps if they ever dared to venture behind the levees, so they are essentially trapped in the flooded wilderness.  It was harrowing to watch the girl try to fend for herself, and even when her father returns, they continue to suffer as another hurricane batters and floods their island.  I kept hoping for some happy ending that would see the girl finally safe and well-cared for, despite the fact that things looked like they were going from bad to worse.

Then, they are visited by rescue workers who bring them and their neighbours, against their will, to a refugee camp where they are given food, clothing, medicine, and schooling.  But they (with their neighbours) plot an escape back to their island.  Huh?

Up to this point, at particularly lonely times, the girl would heartbreakingly cry out for her mother, who abandoned her as a baby.  So, after returning to their bleak makeshift home and finding out that her father is dying of an unspecified disease, she sets out on a raft, and somewhat miraculously finds someone who seems to be her mother.  This woman even offers to let her stay with her.  But she chooses to go back the island.  Huh?

The ending was a bit of a non-ending, actually, in that the girl simply continues to struggle on, just as she did in the beginning of the movie, but now, she has chosen this path.

So basically, this movie ends up being a chronicle of one alternative lifestyle, where people choose poverty and danger when safety and resources are close at hand.  I feel that using the term “alternative” is already being generous, because what reasonable person would choose this?  Not to mention the ethics of choosing it for your child.  I could see that the filmmaker was trying to frame the ending as a celebration of embracing the life you already have.  I just wasn’t entirely convinced, and started to feel less and less sorry for these people as the movie went on.  And that’s kind of the point of the movie too:  this little girl doesn’t want your pity.