That's what this film needed, Uncle Eddie!

Rating: 3/10 (21 September 2006)

Just before I sat down to watch the film LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE I was leafing through a copy of Douglas Adam's final anthology of writings called The Salmon of Doubt. In an article he wrote called "Turncoat" he mused "I wonder if we don't have too much comedy these days...nowadays everybody's a comedian, even the weather girls... We laugh at everything. Not intelligently anymore, not with sudden shock, astonishment, or revelation, just relentlessly and meaninglessly." After the movie was over I couldn't get that thought out of my head. Here is a film that attempts to be dark, attempts to be charming, attempts to be edgy, attempts to be independent, and is yet drops the ball because in the end it has nothing cohesive to say.
Olive Hoover (Abigail Breslin) is the cutest little kid in the world. The kind of kid who just looks at the world with wide-eyed wonder. She sweet even if the world around her isn't so. Her Dad (Greg Kinnear) is a bad motivational speaker and an even worse role model, her mom (Toni Collette) is far to permissive, her brother (Paul Dano) hates his life and has taken a vow of silence, her grandpa (Alan Arkin) snorts heroin, and her Uncle Frank (Steve Carrell) has shown up on their doorstep after a botched attempt to take his own life. This motley family is about to make a 700 mile trip in a beat up VW Van with a busted clutch to get Olive to the National Little Miss Sunshine beauty contest in Redondo Beach. Will they survive each other? Or will Olive's dream of becoming a beauty queen come crashing down? LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is the kind of movie that will leaving you feeling good at the end only because it ends on such a high note. The last ten minutes of this film are easily the best. They're what you're going to talking about as you leave the theater. As for the other 90 minutes well that's up in the air.
The film is far to moody. There is a fine line between dark humor and just plain darkness. LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE spends too much of it early scenes developing realistic characters. They laugh, they cry, and then the film betrays this honesty by asking them to fall into farce. The screenplay goes into auto-pilot and the characters turn into independent film clichés'.
The actors do the best they can with the material but alas the film feels so artificial. You start to see some themes pop out that would make good talking points in an article or interview, but in the context of the film it's all just filler. Every character gets to wax poetic then they get to do something silly. Then the film makes some blanket statement about how life is as phony as a beauty contest, there is an act of rebellion, and then everybody hugs.
The films biggest problem is that the screenplay is such a rip off of NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION. Except instead of Wally World the Hoovers are on their way to Redondo Beach and there is a Proust scholar in the car. There is even a scene in which a dead body shows up and they have to put it in their car. I was waiting for Randy Quaid to show up and ask Greg Kinnear's character for money. That's what this film needed, Uncle Eddie! LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is a "dark comedy" that's far too dark and not really all that funny. It has it's moments, and on the surface it is very sweet and charming. Little Abigail Breslin steals the show, giving Olive a wisdom beyond her age, and a wide-eyed wonder. But unfortunately the film is not worth the price of admission. I'd skip this beauty contest.