Monday Movie Review: Little Miss Sunshine

Little Miss Sunshine (2006) 10/10
Seven year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin) dreams of winning a beauty contest. When she gets the opportunity to enter the Little Miss Sunshine contest, the entire dysfunctional family piles into the old van to get her there.

(This is a continuation of a conversation between oddjob and myself in comments, and also draws on a really good conversation I had this evening with my step-sister Victoria.)

In every blurb and write-up about Little Miss Sunshine, the family is referred to as dysfunctional. Which is some sort of shorthand for kooky and unhappy. Looking back, I'm not actually 100% sure that they are all that dysfunctional, except for Uncle Frank (Steve Carell), who recently attempted suicide. That's dysfunctional. The father (Greg Kinnear) can't get his career as a motivational speaker off the ground. His "motivation" is kind of mean-spirited, and his family doesn't let him get away with much of it. Which makes him kind of a failure and kind of a bastard, and a little clueless, but I'm not sure I'd use the word "dysfunctional" for him. The mom (Toni Collette) is overwhelmed by her family and her life, and angry that her husband isn't bringing in any money. Which makes her very, very normal.

Overall I think these people are a little sad, a little offbeat, and very touching. They are not hurting each other except in the small ordinary ways that people can't help. I'm just realizing this now, but maybe what I liked so much about Little Miss Sunshine is the family isn't all that dysfunctional. The preview would have you believe that Grandpa (Alan Arkin) is creepy and that the family is insane, but he's not and they're not.

Olive wants to be in a beauty contest, but bizarrely, and delightfully, she is unaware that she's kind of fat (the actress wears a fat suit). She is utterly unsuited for the beauty contest that is the world, as is the rest of this family. (Which, again, doesn't make them dysfunctional). "Life," Dwayne (Paul Dano, who is my favorite part of the movie) tells us, "Is one fucking beauty contest after another." And these people will persist in not winning beauty contests. Of course, beauty contests are insane, and this movie makes the best case since King of Hearts that the asylum is the world and the inmates are the ones who've noticed.

What worries me about Little Miss Sunshine is that people are laughing at how nutty the Hoover family is, and maybe I'm the only one who is actually moved by them. Everyone sold me this movie as a comedy, and yes, it's funny in parts. Some good slapstick, some witty lines, some flat-out enjoyable silliness. But I've come away from it thinking, not giggling.

(First runner-up in the Little Miss Cross-post contest)

[That's all, folks]