Absolutely brilliant.

Rating: 10/10 (5 October 2006)

Very rarely are we treated to a film so brilliantly scripted, directed and acted. It's a sad, sad fact nowadays. We can enjoy the odd Hollywood movie that makes the grade in some way, but inevitably it's some sequel, or remake of something that in the end, lacks any real sort of magic. In the last few years, Fox Searchlight have delivered three shining beacon's of simplistic, original, challenging, and insightful little comedy dramas. Those being Lost in Translation, The Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, and now of course, Little Miss Sunshine. Three great movies, devoid of any of that formulaic, saccharine, Hollywood taste, that in large doses soon becomes inedible. This film marks a great antithesis to the blockbuster, and the lazily produced.
Little Miss Sunshine follows a dysfunctional (that's the polite way to put it) family, as the go on a cross country road trip, to take younger member Olive to the Little Miss Sunshine convention to compete. The family is an eclectic and completely diverse mix, with polar opposites including a heroin addicted, highly opinionated grandfather, to a wannabe pilot son, whose taken a vow of silence, right over to the homosexual and recently outed uncle, a teacher, who failed in a suicide attempt following the spurned love of a male student. Relationships are at breaking point, and require repair, and a cross country road trip, may or may not be the medicine to heal the rifts.
This really is a sharp, satirical, poignant, and witty movie, that is aided by a superb cast. Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette play mum and dad superbly, with Kinnear excellent as the self help guru, unable to help anyone because his nine steps programme is yet to be distributed to the masses, and Collette equally good as the work horse mother, trying to hold everything together in the face of manic depressive relatives, and a lack of income. Of great importance was the casting of Olive. She's the centrepiece of the film, as the sweet young Olive, un-hindered by the adult, or adolescent affliction's affecting her family. She is in fact the normality, and the one who stops everything falling apart, the one that all the family would do anything for. When a young person is so prevalent in a film, it is essential to cast a child who can handle the role, with roles this challenging very hard to cast. However Abigail Breslin (who impressed immensely in Signs, at only six years old) is fantastic. She's being hyped up now as the new Dakota Fanning (as if Fanning is now somehow on the scrapheap or past it!?) and in terms of talent rightly so. She's adorable here and gives a fantastically genuine performance. Paul Dano too is excellent as the Nietzsche inspired Dwayne, the troubled teen. Highly impressive as well is Steve Carell. Known thus far for his comical turns in more the Ferrell, Carrey, kind of mugging genre, Carell proves a great crossover actor (like Jim Carrey). Carell's performance is superb, and his choice of roles beyond this will suddenly expand from those that simply require him to gurn for the camera. And finally as the grandfather, is the always classy, Alan Arkin, who has been off the Academy radar for far too long. He is fantastic here, and must, simply must, be a shoe-in for a best supporting actor nomination. Arkin adds a 40+ years of experience and Gravitas to the role.
Directing duo Jonathon Dayton, and Valerie Farris, both do a brilliant job. Things are kept simple. It's all about capturing an atmosphere, a mood, and the performances. It's an 8 million dollar movie, that is infinitely more captivating than anything this year, or last year, that is simply about performance and material. There's no hindrance of CGI, of spectacle. It's crisply and simply shot, focusing on the actors. Hollywood I hope is learning that a price cannot be put on directing, acting and scriptwriting of the highest order, now that big hollow blockbusters are starting to disappoint with their box office return.
Little Miss Sunshine is quite simply a fantastic achievement in the aspects that really matter in film-making. It's at this current time, the film to beat this year. *****