Little Miss Sunshine
You donāt need to remind me that the world of child beauty pageants is little more than a salacious, repugnant industry: an eternal hot spot for various types of pedophiles where they can see sweet little darlings dolled up like street walkers and pushed on stage by their equally disgusting parents to parade around in skimpy outfits. That being said, we have this Best Picture Nominee from 2006, a comedy drama about an ambitious little girl named Olive (Supporting Actress Nominee Abigail Breslin) who dreams of someday walking the aisle while some broken down old perverted MC serenades her and the audience with her victory. Luckily, music video directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris along with screenwriter Michael Arndt have crafted a clever little story about the true measure of winning and losing, where to be a loser is to be someone who is so scared of winning and their own shadow that theyād rather curl up under their covers and hide than get out there and actually fight and TRY to make your dreams come true, as her and her family pile into their old VW bus and drive cross country together to the big pageant in California. To that end theyāve put together an impressive cast where Breslin at age 10 gives an endearing performance with actual depth and Alan Arkin as her lovably foul-mouthed, irascible Grandpa deservedly took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, but really there isnāt a bad performance in the whole lot when you take a look at it: Greg Kinnear as the father trying to make it as a struggling motivational speaker enjoys filling his family up with his self-invented bullshit, but when he falters finds that theyāre still there for him nonetheless; Paul Dano as the son who has taken a vow of silence until he makes it into the Air Force is still relatable for the viewer underneath all the teenage angst; Toni Collette as the Mom who believes that the truth should always prevail in her family makes a fine utility player reacting to the rest of the family; and Steve Carell as the suicidal, gay uncle exhibits admirable control over what normally would be the most landmine-filled part, underplaying his scenes and managing to get both laughs and pathos out of it. Indeed, for much of the first two-thirds the film is amazingly FUNNY, with Arkin in particular hitting one home run after another, and Carell getting a scene in a gas station where an old gay lover catches him buying (straight) porn and the awkwardness that ensues. The story goes at such a strong clip that one feels that they canāt keep it up, and sadly they donāt, with the death of one of the characters basically taking much of the lifeforce out of the film and causing it to limp along to the finale, save for the scene with the traffic cop that is more creepy than funny. Then there is the pageant itself, where Olive gives her big performance in the talent competition, which since the whole movie is building up to this scene, leaves the viewer with mixed emotions: While the idea that Olive is doing something ādifferentā can certainly be appreciated, the performance can be discerned as either being a) not very good in and of itself or b) being so wacked out that there is NO way either Olive or her Grandpa (who prepped her) could realistically have thought that this would have gone over well in a legitimate pageant, and the actions of the rest of the family during this scene only serves to beat the viewer over the head with its āpositiveā climax when a more subtle approach would have sufficed. Still, thereās a lot of entertainment value to be had here, as a strong moral to the story and a lot of talent involved make it at the very least extremely memorableā¦
8/10