Opening wider this weekend, is a movie that those on the coasts last weekend. Little Miss Sunshine tells the tale of a hysterically dysfunctional family as they attempt to get their daughter to a beauty and talent pageant called... Little Miss Sunshine. If the movie sounds like it might be a little too quaint and cutesy, you'd be right. But for every cute step it takes, there is also a real bummer of an underlying story that seeths with despair.
Little Miss Sunshine made waves this year or last year at Sundance Film Festival because it was the highest ever paid for an independent movie, and in all honesty, I can see why they would consider this film a good investment. The story is well written, well acted and definitely more of a crowd pleaser than most indie movies these days.
The movie opens with what must be the most depressing montage in the long sad history of montage. We are introduced to the characters one by one. First you have the the titular Little Miss Sunshine, Olive, who is six or seven years old. She's practicing staged reactions for winning a pageant to a tape of Miss America. Next you have her brother Dwayne, a long lost Goth-er who has given up speaking until he gets into, of all things, the Airforce Academy. These two are quickly followed by their parents, Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear as Sheryl and Richard. Toni doesn't get much of a back story in these opening minutes, but Kinnear's is just pitiful. He plays an unsuccessful self-help guru. We seem him first displaying shoddy graphics on an antiquated overhead projector, and when the lights come up on his audience, we just see a smattering of bored faces in a small room. Ouch. Next up we have the Grandpa played by Alan Arkin. He's a coke head. And finally to top it all off with a great big juicy cherry, we have Steve Carrell as Sheryl's gay brother freshly stitched up after a suicide attempt.
Does this sound delightful enough for you yet?
From that the movie takes a brisk pace as we discover Olive's love of beauty pageants and because of a technicality, she becomes the runner up in another pageant that qualifies her for entrie into the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. Through a series of thinly thought out contrivances, the entire family packs into a VW Van and heads off from New Mexico to Redondo Beach. You know what I predicted when they left? Probably the same as you: that this family was going to nearly fall apart at the seams along the way, but eventually they would rally around Olive as her big moment approaches.
And yes, that's exactly what I got, but even with as predictable as Little MIss Sunshine is, there are some excellent curve balls along the way. Think of this movie kind of like Vacation if that were a semi-pretentious independent movie that tried to prove there was a point to this whole mess we call life and family.
So are you getting enough mixed messages from me on this one yet? I will be honest, the movie was entirely too saccharine for me, but there are a couple of reasons why you should see it. Steve Carrell, as the gay brother who attempted suicide, is really fantastic in his part. From his very first scenes with the family, you can see him trying to connect to the other outcast of the bunch, and his subtle and righteous hostility he has for his brother-in-law is really one of the best parts about the movie. I applaid Carrell for trying on a new skin for this role. He managed to leap frog right over Bill Murray's long and lonely road to indie cred with this well chosen role, and I hope this leads to more serious work from the actor.
So the second reason you should see this? Well I can't really say because it basically spoils the whole movie, but suffice it to say the last 10 minutes of Little Miss Sunshine unspool like the perfect punchline to a feature length joke. To spoil any of it, would ruin the surprise and hilarity of the situation.
Oh and the movie should also receive some special award for exposing the bizarre underbelly of child beautiful pageants. It's interesting that this comes out now as the kill of Jon Benet Ramsey makes his way back to the United States, but if you think back to when she died, you will no doubt remember all those horrifically overdone photos of the child that were splashed on ever TV network from here to Moscow. Well those photos were old fashioned compared to the eyeful you will get in this movie. Mothers? You should be ashamed.
