Quirky. Dysfunctional. Charming. One of the best films of the year.

Rating: 8/10 (27 April 2007)

The film follows a family on their journey to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in California, which the 6-year-old daughter (Olive) hopes to win. Though this is the overall plot, it's really just a backdrop for this film, which is actually more of a study of a dysfunctional family trying to come to grips with itself.
Billed as a comedy, Little Miss Sunshine is more of a drama, along similar lines as the brilliant Sideways or About Schmidt. In fact, I didn't find the first hour or so very funny. Quirky, yes, but not funny. Almost all the laughs, for me, were crammed into the final 45 minutes or so.
Also, I was disengaged for most of this movie's first half. I didn't identify with any of the characters (which included a gay, suicidal, Proust expert; a cynical, Nietzchean teenager who's taken a vow of silence; a drug-addicted grandfather who's epithet-laden rants about sex offends his family; a portly six-year-old girl with giant glasses and no discernible talent, but with ambitions of being a beauty queen; a pathetic father striving for wealth, fame, and success; and a mother who's almost the most sensible of the group, but ultimately unable to bring any sanity to her family). Though I couldn't identify with any of them, I enjoyed them all.
But once the family hits the road, this all changes. They begin to bond as they never have, and there are a number of honest and charming scenes of familial love and appreciation. Nothing melodramatic, just an honest portrayal of a family finding itself.
What truly makes this picture, though, is the ending. Once they reach their destination, you discover that this family had no actual idea what a beauty pageant for six-year-olds entailed. They are, justifiably, stunned at the spectacle, and are protective of their daughter once they realize the laughing-stock she will become.
For me, the most remarkable thing, here, was that the filmmaker's didn't flinch at showing how disgusting these pageants are. The six-year-olds are dressed up like strippers, and their presentation is decidedly unnerving. Even worse, the audience eats it up. They clap, and smile, and encourage their children to behave like adults. These children are sexualized, but it's allowed because it's "cute".
If you, the viewer, aren't thoroughly horrified by this, then you need to re-examine a few things about yourself.
The filmmaker's knew what they were doing.
What makes this scene work (as opposed to having this scene ruin the whole movie) is that it's deliberately ironic. It's a joke, at the expense of all those who go to, or involve themselves in, child beauty pageants.
When Olive (the family's daughter) finally gets on stage, she's literally doing a stripper's routine (to Rick James' "Superfreak"), and the audience is horrified. What they (the filmmaker's) have done is take the "cuteness" out of the show, and left the sexuality. The horror on the audiences faces shows the hypocrisy of the pageant.
The only difference between Olive and the other contestants is that Olive isn't objectified. She does her own routine, and sought to be in the contest, herself. Her family supports her in her ambition (and seek to protect her), they don't force her into it (like the other families presumably have). Olive isn't glammed up in some idealized version of childhood sexuality (as if a thing should exist), she throws the disgusting nature of the pageant in the face of the audience.
This scene is jarring. The entire movie up to this point is quirky, and fun - if fairly serious. Like the family, you aren't prepared for the spectacle of the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. But, once there, you are overcome with how despicable the whole thing is.
Amazingly, the true magic of this film lies in how the pageant is done. It follows the development of these disparate characters coming together to form a familial bond for the first time. You follow them on this journey, and come to love them. You want everything to work out. You even want Olive to win the competition, and then you don't want her to even go on stage (and the father, uncle, and brother try to stop this from happening).
When it becomes obvious that the crowd hates Olive's performance, you feel sorry for her. She doesn't know why they don't like her performance (she is only six, after all), and you want to protect her as if she were your own daughter. When the family finally joins her on stage, your reaction goes from horror, to emotional warmth. What had been building with this family is finally realized in an absurd dance routine.
Literally, my face went from open-mouthed shock, to a smile in the space of two minutes. I've never seen another movie like it.
At the end of the day, this film wasn't half as funny as I hoped it'd be, but it was far more endearing and meaningful than I imagined.