A crap attempting to explore family dysfunction which fails at every level.

Rating: 1/10 (11 March 2007)

How far back in time will W's America revert in film-making?
After watching this 'wannabe-politically-incorrect' comedy, I am definitely beginning to fear the worst. Although 'Little Miss Sunshine' aims at satire, it is completely overwhelmed by perfectly acceptable clichés for the US mainstream public of today.
Take, for example, Uncle Frank: if you are gay, you can either end up bashed to death (as in 'Brokeback Mountain') or be a poor effeminate failure attempting suicide as in 'Little Miss Sunshine'; if you're rebellious, like brother Dwayne, you can take a wow of silence, but of course, your dream should be a correct one, that of becoming an air force pilot, and, of course, you definitely have to cry aloud that you f*** the entire world after discovering you can't. Of course, like the mother you should not smoke (THE crime in the US): notice that the husband blames her for that, but that nobody blames the grandfather for taking hard drugs every day: no surprise, since, as 'Traffic' has shown it brilliantly, the Americans have long ago lost their war on drugs: it has therefore become an acceptable vice. The only compassion might come from the fact, that, although Olive is fat, she is encouraged to go to the contest: again, this is no surprise, since America having become the fattest nation on Earth, you would offend about half of its 300 million citizens if you did not show this compassion. For what affects the final dance scene, it is totally ridiculous, with Olive being dressed almost like a prostitute. it is even bordering pedophilia, which does not seem to annoy the Academy Awards that much. To sum up, compared to various good satires of the '90s, for what affects social satire and family dysfunction, 'Little Miss Sunshine' definitely feels like a 1949 maccarthyst- approved satire.