'Being a Winner is only a state of mind'

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2006)

and being a winner of a film based on so many potentially disastrous bits of black comedy works exceedingly well! As opposed to some of the movies of the recent past (Borat, American Pie, Waiting, the National Lampoon endless series, etc) LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE starts with a smart script by Michael Arndt that addresses many of the highly dysfunctional family elements present in today's society and allows us to hold a few mirrors up to our own vaguely warped view of good and bad, right and wrong, ambition and self destructive delusion and makes us laugh - at times embarrassed, at times just having fun! Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris direct this odd little story of a family in Albuquerque, NM, a family comprised of a grandfather (Alan Arkin) whose 'elderly status' allows him to speak inappropriately grossly and frankly to his grandchildren while snorting coke in the bathroom; a father (Greg Kinnear, who just gets better and better) with a motivational program scheme that is melting toward failure; a mother (the extraordinary Toni Collette) who attempts to cope with her role as the matriarch of this weird group; the mother's brother (Steve Carell), a gay Proustian scholar who has just lost his job over an affair with a grad student and has survived an unsuccessful suicide attempt; a space-cadet teenage son (Paul Dano) who is in a vow of silence as he pursues Nietzsche and extracting promises for his future from his intimidated parents; and last, but most important, a chubby little sister Olive (Abigail Breslin) who dotes on Miss America pageant reruns on TV and longs to tryout for the Little Miss Sunshine beauty/talent show for little girls in Southern California.
The bulk of the film is a road trip which confines this very strange family in an RUV headed for the only bit of positive hope for change in Olive's ploy to become Little Miss Sunshine. Along the trip we get to know these oddballs personally and in the end the results of the family effort competition seem almost secondary to the fun of getting there. Each of the performers is at peak form in acting and the direction and pacing would be difficult to improve. The film accomplishes what comedy sets as a goal: it entertains us while allowing us to take a second look at our own foibles, and that makes for a fun and healthy outing. Highly recommended. Grady Harp