Reaffirming the real sunshine of life

Rating: 7/10 (1 April 2007)

A cute little girl wants to win a beauty pageant. She and her family set out on a road trip of many hundred miles on a rickety bus. The challenges and imperfections of life mock on the faces of the characters and they stand by each other as a family. That is pretty much the plot. Does the little girl go on to win the pageant? Find out for yourself.
It is so much a story of everyone of us that we want to see and hear it more eagerly as the film unfolds. As it usually happens, the journey always so much more than the destination itself.
Little Miss Sunshine, of course, falls into the category of 'feel-good' films - films that you think about while driving back from the cinemas, or on waking up the next morning, and the thought leaves a smile on your face. It talks about family, honesty and being yourself - virtues that'll never go out of fashion. Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris pull of something that is probably most difficult in film making - tell a simple story about ordinary people.
Abigail Breslin is no less a sunshine herself - brilliant and natural. She carries the film the way even veterans struggle to do.
The final stage scene reminded me of my first time on stage. It was an extempore competition at school and I must have looked just as nervous as Olive. Only that when it was my turn to perform, I was not even an inch as confident as her. Obviously, I sucked big time. But Olive, she rocked.