A highly enjoyable ensemble road movie - funny stuff

Rating: 9/10 (22 June 2006)

I saw Little Miss Sunshine a week ago at the Sydney Film Festival, and the audience I saw it with loved it. There was a lot of laughter going on - especially at the hilarious ending. And amidst the jokes it deals smartly with it's theme of the value of chasing your dreams and being one of life's 'winners' versus valuing what you already have. Or put another way, it celebrates the joys of losing in a culture obsessed with winning.
I'm not going to go into detail about the plot, as the film hasn't been widely released yet. There are no huge plots twists, but I think you'll have more fun with this film if you don't know exactly where it's going.
As the film started I wasn't so sure about it. All the characters (apart from Toni Colette's perhaps) seemed to be written as being amusingly quirky in a predictable indie-comedy way. But as the movie went on it became easier to warm to them. I think it helped that the actors appeared to be having genuine fun together. These guys don't feel like much of a family at first, and I wondered a couple of times why these people would bother sticking together, but as things progress the strengths of this particular family unit become obvious. And just as all comedies should, it gets funnier as it goes on. I was pleased to see the script stayed true to it's messages all the way to the end, and didn't turn preachy or maudlin. The whole cast work excellently together, and I hope this film has all the success it deserves once it's released.