A very grim and dark story told in a most adorable fashion, Little Miss Sunshine is a charming little film with heart but flaws as well

Rating: 6/10 (21 March 2007)

Little Miss Sunshine went from a tiny personal independent film to one of many of the "little films that could" back in 2006. Working on a small budget and not much press, it would emerge as a sleeper hit at the box office and would prove to be a highly-praised effort by the well-known directing duet Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. Mixing comedy (quite dark actually) with a heavy hint of drama, Little Miss Sunshine is one of those rare decent dark comedies and a rare decent road trip movie. But, despite all that, its not perfect. Billed as a comedy but coming off much more as a depressing dramedy, Little Miss Sunshine suffers from an unbalanced blend of genres, a few slow moments, and an ending that doesn't really complete the story. As a matter of fact, the ending just screams indie and could have been seen from a mile away. At this point, the conclusion may have just been spoiled, if you've seen enough of these lower-budgeted, "unformulatic" films.
In Little Miss Sunshine, we follow a very dysfunctional and depressed family full of oddballs that are hitting bumps in life. Whether its depression, divorce, long vow of silence, drugs, or lack of motivation, there is almost every kind of unfortunate scenario and situation within the family. The glue keeping everyone together is the adorable daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin), who just happens to be able to enter a beauty pageant for smaller kids. The rest of the family unites together, despite their anger, frustration, and tension amongst each other to help Olive attempt to claim her moment in the spotlight.
Running the show is the superb acting from practically everybody. From veterans Alan Arkin and Greg Kinnear to up-and-coming stars like Steve Carell, Paul Dano, and Abigail Breslin, excellent casting and even better acting runs Little Miss Sunshine and is its standout feature. None of them truly stand out, but they all blend in together with the chaos and drama going on throughout the film. It was fascinating how in one moment, they can make you laugh, and in the next moment make you cry.
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris are excellent directors in the field of music videos. Within the past decade, some of the better music videos come from them. With Little Miss Sunshine however, their creativity and usage of visual effects isn't utilized here, but instead their skills in terms of capturing emotion is used at full blast. Capturing scenery was no problem, as the duo made art out of everyday backgrounds. They kept the pacing quick and consistent, and refrained from taking any long shots unless its bits with no dialogue.
The problem with this movie is the writing and the story in general. Dark comedies can be hard to find, since accidentally crossing the line past dark comedy leads to drama. Little Miss Sunshine aims to be a cute and charming film, but with so much gruesome drama and so much cynical humor, it ends up becoming a gruesome look at life and a rather grim tale of everything going wrong when it shouldn't. Its dark comedy is hard to laugh at sometimes when the dysfunctional family continuously hits roadblocks on the way to the pageant. Kind of like the main weakness of Pursuit of Happiness, Little Miss Sunshine suffers from way too much drama. But, unlike Pursuit, the film has practically no closure in any of the subplots and the bad news that keeps charging into the film every couple of minutes. Topping all the grief is lack of closing as the film ends very abruptly.
Bottom Line: Great directing and great acting couldn't save the movie from having a rather bittersweet taste towards the end. What was a decent story in the beginning disintegrated into an incomplete body of fiction that screams indie and a potentially unnecessary sequel. Little Miss Sunshine is one of those rare films that is cute and dark at the same time, like a Gothic Red Riding Hood with big innocent eyes. We see a lot of careers rising out of this, and directors successfully crossing into another field of entertainment, but not an instant classic that shall be adored for generations. Best Picture nomination? How did it get that? Little Miss Sunshine: Good, but not uber fantastic.