A Genuinely Hilarious Film About Family

Rating: 9/10 (7 September 2006)

These days, the words "comedy" do not inspire in me much confidence when going to the movies. When I see the word "comedy" I think of nauseatingly sappy romantic comedies, or disgustingly over-the-top gross out comedies. The market is so inundated with cliché films of this genre that when a new, innovative, and genuinely hilarious comedy comes along, it feels like a breath of fresh air. Little Miss Sunshine is this breath. Not since last year's 40-year-old virgin has a comedy felt so genuinely funny.
The movie opens with an introduction to one of the most dysfunctional families I have ever seen on screen. Steve Carell plays a suicidal gay uncle, Abigal Spencer a young girl named Olive, who is obsessed with winning beauty pageants, Greg Kinner her loser optimist father (a role for which he was born to play, it seems), Alan Arkin the foul-mouthed lovable grandpa who loves and cares for Olive more than anything, Paul Dano Olive's brother who has taken a vow of silence, and finally, Toni Collette, the mother who has to put up with this mess that passes for a family.
The premise of Little Miss Sunshine is simple enough. Olive has been accepted into the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, and the family cannot afford to fly there, so they take a road trip in their beat up yellow VW van. As you can imagine, hilarity and chaos ensue along the way. Sound cliché and boring? Well, though this premise (dysfunctional family goes on a road trip) has been done before, in no way is it boring, and it never ever feels like a cliché.
Props for this must go to the cast, for pulling it all off so beautifully. Mad props go to Steve Carell, who once again proves what a comic genius he is. Another thing is - this film does not feel like it is riding on Steve Carell's shoulders. Sure, Carell is helping to support it, but it is the chemistry with the rest of the cast that works. Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin, and Greg Kinnear all work wonderfully in tandem with Steve Carell and each other, and never once do they not seem like a family. The writing is brilliant and hilarious, sometimes bouncing forth in wild and wacky outrageous ways, in others quiet and muted, only being funny because it is quiet and muted. Though the premise is a bit cliché, none of the jokes are. Everything comes off as genuinely funny in its own right. There are no moments of outrageous slapstick, no disgusting gross-out humor, no excess use of lewd content to pass as humor....the entire script has the feeling of working perfectly in and out of itself....it just works wonderfully.
Aside from all this, Little Miss Sunshine is a dark comedy. There are areas that it treads where you'll find yourself uttering a small gasp, wondering, "Oh my gosh I can't believe he just said that!" Though this could have been overplayed and completely wasted, it is ingeniously pulled off, parodying and satirizing many elements of American culture throughout. Most of all, it embraces the idea of family. Throughout the film, this family sticks together, they love each other. The message of this film is not, "Ha! Look at how hilarious this family is because of how dysfunctional they are! HA! Isn't that FUNNY!?" The message is, "Look at this family. Look at how screwed up they are. But look at how they love each other. Look at how they come together. Look at, just, the sheer caring these people exude for each other!" We can laugh at these people, but that doesn't mean we can't genuinely feel for them. Most comedies make jokes at the characters' expense...this film never feels like that, not once. The characters are embraced, not hated. Sure, they're funny, but hey, aren't we all?
Flaws? The ending may have been a little bit over-the-top, however amazingly hilarious it was. Other moments of forced hilarity may seem too much for some people, but I thoroughly enjoyed them. Once or times Carell's vibrant acting personality shines through - which is fine, I guess, but I thought it cut down his character a bit. The film isn't too long - one hour and forty minutes feels just about right.
Little Miss Sunshine is simply a feel-good, laugh-out-loud, genuinely hilarious comedy that anyone with a heart for family will love. I certainly loved it. It is rated R, though, but I don't believe this really hindered the movie at all. Sure the characters swear, they talk about sex, and whatnot, but who doesn't? Little Miss Sunshine is everything a comedy should be. It is happy. It is sad. It is hilarious. It is tragic. It is family.