A Winner of a movie about Losers

Rating: 7/10 (12 September 2006)

A dysfunctional family takes a road trip in a run down VW van so that the 7 year old daughter can participate in the finals of the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, and along the way they learn about themselves, each other, and change their perceptions on life in general. Sounds about as good as Hope Floats or National Lampoon's European Vacation, right? But this is dysfunction taken to extremes and dealt with with just the right balance of humour and sensitivity, and so a movie that could veer dangerously close to schmaltz and sentimentality instead reins itself in, becoming as deeply funny as it is moving.
The family that squeeze themselves into that van comprises of Sheryl (Tonie Collette), working mother and sole breadwinner; Richard (Greg Kinnear), her husband and wannabe motivational speaker; Sheryl's brother Frank (Steve Carrel), a gay, pre-eminent Proust scholar who's just failed in a suicide attempt; Sheryl's son, Dwayne (Paul Dano), who, inspired by Nietszche, has taken a vow of silence until he's accepted to train as an fighter pilot; Richard's father (Alan Arkin), an oversexed pensioner experimenting with heroin; and Sheryl and Richard's daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin), a beauty queen obsessed 7 year old with a truly idiosyncratic fashion sense.
These descriptions may sound like a ragbag collection of depressed caricatures, but the performances by the cast prevent it from lapsing into emotional parody, and truly a star is born in the form of Abigail Breslin to whom this movie entirely belongs. Surrounded by veteran scene stealers like Collette, Carrel and Arkin, she effortlessly transcends the film in possibly the most honest performance a child actor has ever delivered on screen. Her bemusement at her despicable father's sneering dietary insinuations when she orders ice cream for breakfast and subsequent lack of appetite almost made me cry.
This movie is painfully truthful and yet shockingly funny, and just when it seems it couldn't get any bleaker, it suddenly swings round and turns out to be the ultimate feel good movie.