"Typical" Independent Movie

Rating: 4/10 (27 March 2008)

I want to start by saying, Little Miss Sunshine is not an entirely bad movie - it's just not my kind of movie. Everything comes down to a dysfunctional family putting aside their personal problems to help support the little girl, Olive, in her trip to the beauty pageant. On the way drama and awkwardness ensues, and while everyone starts out a little unhappy at the beginning of the ride, at the end of the day they're all in a good mood despite the crappy events that occurred. I guess the key theme in this movie is "Optimism", or something of that nature.
The acting is alright, but nothing that you would necessarily call 'remarkable'. Steve Carell made a very believable suicide-attempter (though I don't know why they made him gay, to be honest his sexual orientation didn't really matter) and you could sense his uneasiness with the group early on, Alan Arkin did nice work portraying the perverse, drug-addicted grandpa, and even Greg Kinnear had a notable role as the father who was really into his job but failed to realize that the reason he wasn't doing well selling the program was because he was a nobody.
I did not, however, care for the acting of Abigail Breslin and Paul Dano. I had a hard time believing that this little girl was as charming as everyone said she was, and the teen kid was just very fake. I liked the girl's scene with the grandpa where it showed his softer side and that he really cared about his granddaughter, and I liked Carell's scene with the teen because he had someone he could finally talk to in the family without seeming weird around. When Olive finally did her pageant act it was funny, but that kind of ties into her grandfather's influence on her.
There's a couple of funny moments here and there, but it's mostly drama, and drama emphasized through action over words much of the time. I don't want to listen to people swear their heads off at each other and then get quiet and hug for two minutes. A lot of it just came off as being forced, it's like this movie tried too hard to be a regular independent movie. I can't see myself watching this a second time, and definitely not a third. It's pretty much overrated.