Fine Performances, Weak Script

Rating: 6/10 (2 August 2006)

*Possible Spoiler Alert* I think the main reason I went to see this movie was the fact Steve Carell is in it. Although I was extremely disappointed with "The 40 Year Old Virgin" I am still very optimistic that Carell will make that amazing comedic feature film we're all waiting for. "Little Miss Sunshine" is not that movie, but it still is an encouraging step in the right direction. Carell, shows incredible range here as an actor, blending extreme pathos with a genuine comic likability. In short he's a real person here.
There are several aspects of the film which I really did admire but overall the weaknesses of the script kept this thing from truly taking off. In fact the entire ensemble cast is heaven-sent. Each one, from Toni Collette to Alan Arkin and Greg Kinnear made me forgive many of the shortcomings of the script. The directors have this Williamsburg Brooklyn hipster pose that annoyingly tries to camouflage itself in the "average everyday American" life of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm sure they didn't mean it to come off as condescending, but it does sometimes.
The script is actually not much more than a poorer man's version of a James L. Brooks film filtered through "National Lampoon's Vacation." The script is frustrating because there are some genuinely tender and touching moments (like Grandpa's scenes with Olive, Olive getting her brother to get back in the van)--in fact those moments were for me the most effective parts of the film. More frustrating is that believable situations are constantly undermined by stupid, desperate plot devices. The movie hopped off the train track altogether when the whole family agrees to follow the charmless Kinnear's insane lead and smuggle the corpse from the hospital. The fact that the family goes along with that so easily rings false like nothing else. Nothing we see before that moment indicates that they would all do such an unreasonable thing. The winner and loser theme is top heavy and characters even spell out the film's themes in the dialogue. In fact it's never truly believable that Collette and Kinnear would be so loonily passionate about getting their daughter to a beauty contest in the first place or that they would be so clueless as to how horrific the Little Miss Sunshine Pageant is! Instead of trying to patch up these holes, the writer and the directors try to zoom past them hoping the audience won't notice them.