Where the Sun Don't Shine

Rating: 2/10 (9 January 2009)

"Little Miss Sunshine" attempts to tread on ground that has been firmly furrowed by such films as "Bottle Rocket", "Sideways", "Broken Flowers", "Rushmore", "Wonder Boys", and "Napoleon Dynamite" - a pointed black comedy that uses relationship in dichotomy within an evolving framework. In this case, it's a road trip to a pageant in which Olive Hoover will compete for the title of Little Miss Sunshine.
Unlike the other films mentioned earlier, this is a complete disappointment. Its message is blithe and unremarkable and is completely sublimated by its simplistic and crude bearings. Worse, I found the characters to be predictable and completely unlikeable - a presentation that inept writers/directors seem to mistake for the gist of good black comedy. The script is as devoid of depth as a wading pool.
While not having much with which to work, the cast mails in their performances. Alan Arkin has been the author of many great comedic and dramatic characterizations, including "The Russians are Coming..." and "Glengarry Glen Ross" to name a few. This Oscar-winning nod is a throwaway. Toni Collette, one of the most versatile of current actors, stoops not to conquer, but to rake in the cash - she has absolutely nothing to do here. I found her character to be innocuous at best. Steve Carell does his best to put a wet blanket over the one potentially complex character in the mix - his monolithic performance falls particularly flat, and serves as a poster child for lack of inspiration.
Overall, this film is a black comedy in the sense that it insults its audience by taking them for fools with a maudlin "message" and "quirky" characters. And based upon the number of awards and glowing accolades that this fraud has received, fools have been rushing in by the truckload.
This is one of the very few films that I've seen recently that I would call "repellent". And for that, I'll give it a 2.