The Grapes of Egotism

Rating: 3/10 (10 December 2007)

This movie brings a few really funny moments to the screen. It lingers on in my memory and planted there a seed of irritation that is growing.
Little Miss Sunshine seems to be loosely inspired by John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and John Ford's filmic treatment of that novel. A family of colorful, desperate characters move west to California in an unreliable car and have various experiences en route and once they get there. It is not sheer poverty that lies behind the daring trip. I mean, yes, the folks are poor in a way but not outright desperate for a crumb of bread. There's no doubt that life will go on somehow (they still sleep in comfortable motel rooms). The motive for everything that happens here is, as I see it, self fulfillment. Yes, that's very important, too, but it lacks urgency (for outsiders, at least). The movie takes us on a trip to a realm where the motto is: take it or leave it. A man made dreamland where commitments are lighter than air and consequences heavier to digest than a ton of cheese.
Everybody has dreams. Why many think that making dreams a reality should be at the center of man's activities, is beyond me. So maybe my irritation stems from a lack of comprehension. At the center of this movie is a little girl. She wants to win a beauty pageant. She is on a kind of a short list for the finals and she can count on the support of her family. Anyway, they decide to accompany her to the pageant. Now, considering the wish to participate and the support, one might assume that the family is well acquainted with the pageant routine and basically accepts those conventions.
As it turns out, the girl was secretly coached by her grand dad, a guy who habitually consumes illegal drugs and has a bad and primitive vocabulary (believe me, there's nothing original or funny about it, it's just plain vulgar and nasty). She presents a strip-tease at the pageant, and even her folks seem to be surprised at that  which surprised me as a viewer in turn. Her performance and her dress cause a scandal, and in fact they appear to be mainly a protest against that kind of pageant. There are a great many reasons to be against it, but here it looks like the little girl was the instrument of an elaborate hoax concocted by her grand dad. Apparently she has no idea that what she does is inappropriate and will cause a stir. As I said, maybe I did not understand that angle correctly, but I found it abusive, cruel and reproachful. In no way does the movie make a comment on that aspect and somehow I resent that.