My friends and relatives

Rating: 9/10 (14 August 2006)

It's rare for me to see a movie and feel like I know the characters as friends or relatives, that I live among them. Little Miss Sunshine is one of those rarities. I was particularly impressed by the reality portrayed by Toni Collette as Sheryl, the mother who keeps the dysfunctional family from total destruction. She's an archetype we all know and love: a mother earth without whom families would not exist. Everyone else is along for the wonderfully-scripted, screwball comic ride: the desperate, fumbling father seeking to lead, the tormented son, the fantasizing daughter, the zany-cum-senile grandfather, and the chronically depressed uncle. We learn to love each of them as the family finds coherence and truth.