Far beyond "black comedy"

Rating: 10/10 (4 August 2006)

People are trying to pigeonhole this as a black comedy. It's not in the same league as Grosse Point Blank. This movie oozes charm. It's the hackneyed "i laughed, i cried" but I did as did my husband. We have an 8 year old daughter who looks so much like Abigail Breslin, so it may have been more personal for us.
We played hookey to see it on opening day in our area and we would have paid full price. We will buy it when it's released. I have a love of Stephen Covey's 7 habits. I confess that up front.
We discussed how when good life moral lessons are distilled down to bullet point that are overly general, they lose their meaning. Greg Kinnear's character has distilled his life to trite bullet points that miss their mark.
This movie focuses on how to look at not what is a winner and what is a loser, but how do you find success that is meaningful to you. I was so glad that didn't get lost.
One thing my husband pointed out that I totally missed was that the VW Bus was a metaphor for the Family. When they were falling apart, so was it. When they had pulled together after the pageant, by gosh, they had put together the bus enough to where they could deal with it. No family is perfect. What matters is if it runs well enough that you can deal with its idiosyncrasies.
Alan Arkin is a consummate scene stealer. We were so glad he was there. He made us laugh and yet he pulled our hearts out in the scene in the motel with Olive where he reassures her that she *is* beautiful, when he tells Dwayne to get engaged in life, when he tells Richard that he loves him. My face got a workout laughing and crying with everything about him. Yes, I knew he probably had a different path then the rest of the characters intellectually. But i cried hard when I realized what was going to happen. Thank you, Mr. Arkin.
Thank you Ms. Collette. Muriel's wedding was the same kind of movie in that it engaged me fully to become a part of the setting. And like Muriel's wedding, everything worked. I didn't dread when Olive was in the pageant. Every part was handled well. And everything moved the story forward. I didn't anticipate every awkward situation in this movie like Meet the Parents, and Planes, Trains & Automobiles. I was delighted by this film.
We loved how Frank became the voice of Dwayne. And then Dwayne found his own voice. After a number of losses in my life, I realize that it's only when we say "I hate you" that we can begin to say "I love you" and truly understand what that means. We loved how they didn't hammer home the mothers of "pageant girls.:" It was what it was. And it wasn't the Hoovers.
Our only regret was that there was no closure by Olive herself at the end of the pageant. Was it good for her? What did she learn?
What was our takeaway? Well, in 7 Habits, Dr. Covey talks about one of his sons who doesn't seem to be at the "right" age level. And it was only through painful discovery that they realized that it was their expectations that were hampering him, and that once they accepted & loved him & treated him like he was perfectly fine, he did fine. Once the family accepted Olive as perfectly fine, and let her do her thing, and even engaged in being her thing, the car worked better, the family worked better, and I suspect Richard would self-publish his book and become a true success. (well, I hope so). We went out to dinner tonight, and treated our daughter much better and much more full of love and acceptance then usual. I hope we continue to do that.