Permission to disagree with the masses?

Rating: 4/10 (24 June 2007)

Not since viewing Magnolia some two years ago has this critic been so willing to disagree with the majority of users on this site and critics around the world. Little Miss Sunshine is a tedious, unfocused, and downright boring film. There are some laughs here, but nothing near as many as you'd think they could have come up with for this subject material.
Less than five minutes into this film, we are introduced to a teenage character who won't talk. That's right, he will not utter a word. He only writes things down on a small pad of paper or scowls at anyone who tries to communicate with him. As soon as this character was unveiled, my heart sank. I knew I had stumbled into and "indie" film that thinks having "quirky" characters equals good writing. How unrealistic is such a character? Too unrealistic to film. The parade of annoying characters is just getting started, though. Alan Arkin who plays the grandfather of this family has some funny lines. His character however is little more than just the stereotypical "dirty old man". And his character's early death basically means that the laugh well dries up pretty quickly. Greg Kinnear is hardly funny as a would-be self help guru trying to get a book published. Toni Collette as the mom is lost in the shuffle and doesn't add much to the story.
Oh, speaking of the story.... the film claims to be about a family taking a young girl from New Mexico to California for a beauty pageant. And yes, a road trip of this sort is made, but surprisingly little dialog is dedicated to this girl and her upcoming pageant. Maybe that was the overall plan by the writer, but the little girl named Olive just seems to get lost in the shuffle for most of the movie. I was expecting the film to be more about these types of pageants and the overbearing parents who sign their kids up for them. The film never seems to focus on any of that until the final fifteen minutes or so when it actually makes some good observations. Why did the film wait so long to attack a subject so ripe for critical observation? Why was so much time wasted on subplots involving annoying characters? Why was the scene included where Kinnear borrows a moped to meet up with his agent at a hotel to discuss the impending failure of his book? The funniest thing about this situation would seemingly be how Kinnear acquires the bike. Yet we aren't even shown how he does this!!! I could come up with several funny ways he could ask these guys for one of their bikes. Why couldn't screenwriter Michael Arndt? Was it filmed, and then cut? If so, why? Other beefs include the misuse of Steve Carell. True, he wasn't as well known when this was being made, but his character needed more development. Other than the fact that he's a gay suicidal intellectual, he seems to have not much purpose. Is it possible to write an original story anymore that doesn't have a gay character? Does having a gay character give any script some immediate indie cred? There are some funny incidents involving the old VW bus that the family uses to take the trip. Trouble is, they seemed like they wandered in from another kind of movie. They belonged more in a National Lampoon's Vacation or some type of road picture which relies more on physical comedy.
The film saves a little face at the end when it documents the insaneness of these beauty pageants involving little girls made up to look like slutty women. There is something truly unsettling about parents making their kids up like that and parading them around like Jean Benet Ramsey. The film actually ends on it's best note with these observations. But watching the family get to California..... forget it! 4 of 10 stars.
The Hound.