Welcome to Hell.

Rating: 9/10 (26 August 2006)

This movie moved me, physically as well as emotionally. At times, my body had moved from the theater seat to the floor, as I could not control the laughter than encompassed my body. Emotionally, it affected me just as much; my mind slid off the seat for a while, and I saw things in my life as they really were.
This movie was based on a typical, dysfunctional American family. Maybe most of the feelings I had toward this movie came from the fact that I could relate so closely to the family on screen.
One tagline for this film read: "Welcome to Hell." In fact, that's just about what it was.
The movie floats around the young girl of the family, Olive. At the age of seven, she is invited to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in California. The only way to get her there is to put the whole family into a beat-up VW bus, and drive. This is in fact where most of the dark comedy is ensued.
First off, the cast of characters is just magnificent. Most of the events pulled off would not be even as close to as funny or dramatic as they were without the terrific cast of characters.
Greg Kinnear leads the family as the strict and over-ambitious father, Toni Collette is the stressed out mother, Alan Arkin as the perverted, junkie grandfather, and the daughter and son, Abigail Breslin and Paul Dano. Then throw in the amazing Steve Carell as the depressed and suicidal uncle, and you have one of the funniest ensemble casts to grace the screen in a long time.
Every family member is starkly different; yet they fit together perfectly. The acting is top notch, from the grandfather's tainted ranting to the mute-by-choice son, to the fighting parents and the sarcastic uncle. Olive is on her own, spending most of the time listening to her music to avoid hearing the explicit conversations occurring in the bus.
I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. Every joke hit perfectly, and everything that could go wrong, happens. It's a disaster flick, disguised by the title and premise. There was so much comedy in this movie that it spills over into the blackness right before the end credits, and you can't help but keep laughing as you walk out of the theater.
The family encounters almost everything on their road trip; they experience love and hated, death and healing, and even a bit of car trouble. It leaves the audience with things to think about; with questions to ask themselves.
I walked out of that theater with a full mind. Full of questions that were building and will probably never be answered. Questions about family, and dealing with emotions, and even life itself As the teenage son says, "Life is one f----n' beauty contest after another."