Little Miss Sunshine
I went to see Little Miss Sunshine (2006) on a rainy afternoon in London, because I was afraid it wouldn’t be playing in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, when I returned home. It was. I saw it a second time.
Little Miss Sunshine follows a road trip from New Mexico to California with Olive’s family. Olive is a seven-year-old beauty pageant fanatic. When she was visiting her aunt in California, she entered a pageant for girls and placed second. Later, she gets a message that the winner was made ineligible (with a throw-away comment alluding to diet pills) and she was asked to come to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California. She gets this news at a bad time. Olive’s family is a perfect storm of bad attitudes, bad chemicals and disappointment, but they all have to pile into a barely-functioning yellow VW bus to make the trek.
Olive’s father (Greg Kinnear) is an unsuccessful motivational speaker, which has got to be the sorriest vocation one could ever name. His “9 Steps To Success” have seeped out of his seminars and into his everyday life, where he pressures Olive to win and derides losers for not “wanting it” enough.
Olive’s mother Sheryl (Toni Collette) is the one that tries to put everything in perspective. She’s the voice of reason. She’s the protector. She’s the reader of post-modern child-rearing books. She’s nurturing and sweet without being cloying.
Sheryl’s brother Frank (Steve Carell) comes to live with the family in the opening scenes of the movie. He is recovering from an unsuccessful suicide attempt caused by the unrequited love of one of his grad students (he’s a Proust scholar) and his subsequent mental breakdown and dismissal at his University. Steve Carell will be nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars, I prophesy. He was positively crush-worthy in this movie, and his great beard and pale tropical vacation/mental patient clothing didn’t hurt. I don’t feel warm fuzzies for him when he’s playing Michael Scott on “The Office.” I was very impressed.
Olive’s paternal grandfather (Alan Arkin) has also recently moved into the house. He was forcibly removed from his retirement community for being a belligerent jerk. Oh, and abusing heroin. He dedicates most of his time to cursing and helping Olive rehearse for non-exsistant beauty pageants. For all his nastiness, he might be the sweetest character in the whole picture.
Sheryl says Olive’s brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) has taken a vow of silence until he gets accepted into the Air Force. That’s not the whole story, but he doesn’t tell anyone but his uncle Frank, via a notepad and pen.
The writing and direction in Little Miss Sunshine is so accurate and astute that the audience knows the stories of all the characters in the first few minutes, as the titles roll. It’s the strength of that storytelling and the acting that make this such a sweet, disturbing, and funny film. It’s the kind of screenplay combined with great casting that I love to see – its economy, subtlety, and charm make this one of my favourite movies of the year.
This is more than a road trip movie, and although there is a group-hug-like moment at one point, it’s more than a saccharine story about a damaged family or damaged parts of a family whole. This family doesn’t stick together because they’re family. They’re stuck together because they’re family. There’s the difference.
Little Miss Sunshine is going to be released on DVD on December 19th, 2006. If you were unable to see it before, I highly recommend renting it. Those who have seen it before intend to rent in anyway.
Little Miss Sunshine follows a road trip from New Mexico to California with Olive’s family. Olive is a seven-year-old beauty pageant fanatic. When she was visiting her aunt in California, she entered a pageant for girls and placed second. Later, she gets a message that the winner was made ineligible (with a throw-away comment alluding to diet pills) and she was asked to come to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California. She gets this news at a bad time. Olive’s family is a perfect storm of bad attitudes, bad chemicals and disappointment, but they all have to pile into a barely-functioning yellow VW bus to make the trek.
Olive’s father (Greg Kinnear) is an unsuccessful motivational speaker, which has got to be the sorriest vocation one could ever name. His “9 Steps To Success” have seeped out of his seminars and into his everyday life, where he pressures Olive to win and derides losers for not “wanting it” enough.
Olive’s mother Sheryl (Toni Collette) is the one that tries to put everything in perspective. She’s the voice of reason. She’s the protector. She’s the reader of post-modern child-rearing books. She’s nurturing and sweet without being cloying.
Sheryl’s brother Frank (Steve Carell) comes to live with the family in the opening scenes of the movie. He is recovering from an unsuccessful suicide attempt caused by the unrequited love of one of his grad students (he’s a Proust scholar) and his subsequent mental breakdown and dismissal at his University. Steve Carell will be nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars, I prophesy. He was positively crush-worthy in this movie, and his great beard and pale tropical vacation/mental patient clothing didn’t hurt. I don’t feel warm fuzzies for him when he’s playing Michael Scott on “The Office.” I was very impressed.
Olive’s paternal grandfather (Alan Arkin) has also recently moved into the house. He was forcibly removed from his retirement community for being a belligerent jerk. Oh, and abusing heroin. He dedicates most of his time to cursing and helping Olive rehearse for non-exsistant beauty pageants. For all his nastiness, he might be the sweetest character in the whole picture.
Sheryl says Olive’s brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) has taken a vow of silence until he gets accepted into the Air Force. That’s not the whole story, but he doesn’t tell anyone but his uncle Frank, via a notepad and pen.
The writing and direction in Little Miss Sunshine is so accurate and astute that the audience knows the stories of all the characters in the first few minutes, as the titles roll. It’s the strength of that storytelling and the acting that make this such a sweet, disturbing, and funny film. It’s the kind of screenplay combined with great casting that I love to see – its economy, subtlety, and charm make this one of my favourite movies of the year.
This is more than a road trip movie, and although there is a group-hug-like moment at one point, it’s more than a saccharine story about a damaged family or damaged parts of a family whole. This family doesn’t stick together because they’re family. They’re stuck together because they’re family. There’s the difference.
Little Miss Sunshine is going to be released on DVD on December 19th, 2006. If you were unable to see it before, I highly recommend renting it. Those who have seen it before intend to rent in anyway.
posted by Catherine at 12:14 p.m.
6 Comments:
I used to have a semi-crush on Steve Carell back when he was an anchor on the Daily Show.
I'd like to see this movie.
Oh, totally! Produce Pete Steve Carell? He was awesome! I loved how he would start with a recipe for cabbage soup and end up telling a story about not being allowed to invite children into his house anymore after a misunderstanding last Hallowe'en? Fantastic.
Can't wait for this movie to come out on DVD!! I'll never look at "Superfreak" the same way again.
Where's Olive?
I loved this picture. One should also note that the whole "second most famous Proust scholar in the world" stuff so accurately ribbs academia today that it is painfully funny. Painfully.
Yeah, all the references to his life as the "premiere Proust scholar" seem so useless and silly when he's pushing a beat-up VW bus, but then out on the pier with Dwayne, we can see that really loved his work and, by the looks of things, was really good at being a professor, which makes his character all the sadder.
I finally saw this movie today!
I liked it very much, thank you.
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