Sometimes the simplest stories make the best films

Rating: 8/10 (19 November 2006)

Music video directors Jonathan Dayton's and Valerie Faris' film debut is fun family fluff at its best  albeit hardly top 250 list material. I was going to give Little Miss Sunshine a "7" when I returned from the theatre, but then I saw that it had departed from its position on the prestigious list and I therefore feels it deserves an "8". That is hardly a very balanced way of rating a film, but just this once I hope you see where I'm coming from.
Certainly the simple plot outline should be cemented in everyone's mind by now from seeing so many trailers of a swooshing yellow van that is literally unable to slow down because of a manual shifting problem that there's neither time nor money to fix. In the front seat is the eternal optimist dad and the responsible mom. Cut to the backseat where the cynical suicide-attempter and Proust-scholar uncle sits, along with the 'difficult' teenage son. Then there's a sex-crazed old grandpa who has been kicked out of his retirement home for using drugs. Oh, and then there's Olive. Their goal? Reach the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in California.
It seems as though the vast majority of mainstream moviegoers have crowned 'Little Miss Sunshine' their top movie of the year. Although I would not go that far, it needs to be said that it is often viciously funny, sweet, touching and quirky. Dayton and Faris blend kooky indie and mainstream entertainment with deft strokes. It is owing to this fresh mix of highlights that the film is able to channel considerable warmth in the midst of tragedy and for that I applaud it. Paul Dano in particular cater to the emotional part, and he does it better than anyone else. By contrast, for comedy, there is the ever-reliable and hysterically funny Steve Carell. No description will do his deadpan humour justice. He is the film's comedic goldmine.
If you want to nitpick, Little Miss Sunshine occasionally falls prey to predictability, arguably owing to its simple template plot. Never does it stray from the latter; there are no twists, turns, detours or diversions that truly jump out and grab you, aside from perhaps the grandfather storyline. My theatre audience was also highly unresponsive and the subconscious bandwagon effect resulted in many jokes to fall flat. This would not have been an issue with a flawless film. But alas, these minor shortcomings do not detract much from an otherwise solid and fun little film that, best of all, makes no pretense about its status.
8 out of 10