Take a suicidal, gay Proust scholar, a crabby grandfather who has been kicked out of his retirement home, a 15 year-old boy who refuses to speak and reads only Nietzsche, a wanna-be self-help guru, an overworked mom, and a 8 year-old girl who dreams of winning a beauty pageant throw them into a VW microbus and start them on a roadtrip from Albuquerque, NM to Redondo Beach, CA. Does this sound like it’s going to be a funny film?
If it doesn’t, I suggest you look again. Little Miss Sunshine is laugh-out-loud funny in that “oh my god! that is so wrong” sort of way that we desperately need right now.
Revolving around the random chance that Olive (Abigail Breslin) gets to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, the story of the Hoover family is one of absolutely stunning American dysfunction. Long-suffering Sheryl (Toni Collette) has to deal not only with Richard (Greg Kinnear) and his “9 steps for success” even when they are trying not to fight over what they’re going to tell Olive and Dwayne (Paul Dano) about her brother Frank (Steve Carrell) and his recent suicide attempt the reasons for which Franks ends up explaining very calmly in that way only the incredibly depressed among us can muster.
It’s the random message left on the machine and Richard’s admirable if only for its consistency adherence to his “9 steps” for winning that set this bizarre little family, which also includes Grandpa (Alan Arkin) on the road in a shiney, yellow VW microbus.
The thing that I liked best about this film is that nearly every character has a distinct and discernible arc. They change and grow, yet they do it in ways that aren’t showy or flashy, ways in which even the characters, were they real people, would probably not be aware.
The other thing that I liked is that the comedy and the drama in this film come from human foibles, not from outrageous set-ups or outlandish gags. This film recognizes life for what it truly is: a random series of events with which each of us must cope to the best of her or his own ability. And it also recognizes that some of us cope better than others.
Little Miss Sunshine opened in limited release on July 26th and opens in wide release on August 18th. The fact that this was a free preview screening doesn’t really influence my opinion of the film at all. In fact, being packed like a sardine into an overheated theater on one of the hottest days of the year didn’t predispose me to like this movie at all.
For its absurdity and its humanity, and for the fact that Steve Carrell and Alan Arkin reminded me that it’s not necessary to have sex with a bit of pastry to get laughs, I’m giving Little Miss Sunshine 3.5 popcorns out of 5.
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