"And you thought your family was dysfunctional!"
And you thought your family was dysfunctional!
Going into "Little Miss Sunshine," I expected it to be a lighthearted, family-style comedy, peppered with some adult dialogue and Steve Carrell's usual hijinks. I was not disappointed, however, that the movie was not quite what I expected.
"Little Miss Sunshine" is the tale of an adorably pretentious and wise-beyond-her-years little girl named Olive Hoover (Abigail Breslin) who has been competing her little heart out on the pageant circuit, and has been invited to attend the prestigious Little Miss Sunshine competition. Egged on by her sometimes harsh and frequently potty-mouthed grandfather (Alan Arkin), Olive enlists her entire family to accompany her on a long and arduous road trip to California.
Olive's parents are played by the always spot-on Toni Collette and the comedically underrated Greg Kinnear. Collette plays Olive's tightly-wound mother who is proud of her children and trying to paste together the broken pieces of her family, and Kinnear plays the failing father whose book deal is going down the tubes, and uses the program at the heart of the book to judge his family, while he himself slowly falls apart. The family is rounded out by gay and formally suicidal Uncle Frank (a hilariously understated Carrell), voluntarily mute brother Dwayne (played by young budding star Paul Dano) and the secretly cocaine-addicted Grandpa.
The gang boards a broken-down VW bus that refuses to shift into first gear and must be pushed by the family, and eventually loses all control of its horn. Problems ensue along the way, and each member of the family must consequently face their own personal tragedies and struggles. The entire trip culminates in Olive's participation in the pageant and a surprising turn of events therein.
Little Miss Sunshine is a dark comedy in every sense of the word. If your sense of humor involves laughing in the face of tragedy and has a twisted sense to it, then this movie is definitely for you. With a stellar cast of Collette, Carrell and Kinnear, the comedy is subtle, sarcastic, and so deadpan that you may miss it. What could be billed as a celebration of family values or a study in comedic acting is certainly no feel good movie. But you will most definitely be chuckling your way out of the theater.
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