Little Miss Sunshine Is A Little Hit-Miss Stupidity *1/2

Rating: 4/10 (20 December 2006)

The tale of a dysfunctional family who leave New Mexico in order to enter their homely teenage daughter into a California beauty contest.
The family to put it mildly is absolutely ridiculous. The girl has no chance whatsoever of succeeding in such a contest. Her older brother has taken a vow of silence. While on the trip to the pageant, it is determined that he is colorblind and therefore will not be allowed to fly. He goes ballistic before being calmed down by his sister.
Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette play the couple in this hopeless film. Kinnear is terribly miscast. The part, if the picture had to be done, should have gone to Steve Martin. Collette's brother, a college professor, has attempted suicide over a failed homosexual relationship with another student. He has left the hospital to join the family. In addition to all this, Kinnear's foul-mouthed father has left a senior citizen group to live with the family. He has taken up heroin addiction in his dotage.
While on the trip, grandpa (Alan Arkin) has the temerity to die in his sleep due to an apparent overdose but the family carts the body out of the hospital to get to California on time. To add to this pitiful nonsense, they are stopped by a state trooper who finds racy magazines but not the body.
Finally arriving at the pageant, the young girl does a dance routine that shall we say is not appropriate. The family goes on stage to support her. The police are called and the family is set free on the promise that they never enter their daughter into another beauty contest in the state of California.
Can you believe all this nonsense? Along the way, Kinnear learns that a big selling opportunity has fallen through.
Arkin is the lucky one. By dying, he gets away from all this. A very bad movie in extremely poor taste.