A spicy comedy-drama teemed with sunshine

Rating: 9/10 (5 February 2007)

I wasn't so impressed right after I watched this movie. But next day I kept thinking about what its seemingly anti-climax ending truly means. One thing is sure: this is definitely not an ordinary comedy. It distinguished itself from "cheap" laughter-invokers in that you know things are not that simple while you were laughing. Neither should it be labeled as a "dark" comedy. It is ... a spicy comedy-drama teemed with sunshine.
But on a second thought, is it really sun rays everywhere? Shortly after the opening scene we realized that our main characters, the Hoover family, is besieged by so many troubles that the only reason it didn't fall apart is due to inertia. Oh, and our little miss sunshine, of course. The best part of this insecure family is that it is almost a typical specimen of the prevailing social problems: divorce, poverty, indifference, drug-abuse, suicide, homosexuality, pride & prejudice, etc. With the development of the story, we tend to be more and more anxious about the outcome of Olive's trip to the child beauty pageant and put all these ailment off. In the middle I was tricked to believe that this is a Shirley-Temple Clone. It offers more than that. Surprisingly, after the Hoovers left the scene in the yellow VW bus, nothing seemed to be solved yet everything is now sunshine.
My favorite quotes from the movie: Frank: "You know Marcel Proust? ... Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh- he gets down to the end of his life... and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered- Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school- Those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that."
And, of course this: Grandpa: "Listen to me, I got no reason to lie to you, don't make the same mistakes I made when I was young. F**k a lotta women kid, not just one woman, a Lotta women."
4 Oscars nominated. How many will it win? Let's see.