Worth Watching Just to See the Ending

Rating: 9/10 (26 January 2007)

I saw this with a group of friends who didn't know much about the film. After about 30 minutes, one of them commented, "Is this suppose to be a comedy?" That's pretty much the feeling for the first half of the film, but once the characters are established, the viewer is set up for one of the most charming displays of a family bonding ever in a film.
The family is extremely messed up. It felt like we were visiting a home where we were seeing things that we shouldn't be seeing. It was painful and compelling at the same time because you could tell that everyone cared for each other very much but all their personal S**t was getting in the way of them making healthy connections to each other.
The youngest of the family, 8 year-old Olive, gets into a beauty contest and the whole family embarks on a trip across country in a decrepit Microbus to support her dream of being Little Miss Sunshine. Olive is adorable, but not cutesy at all. Her father is so hard on her to be a winner that he even starts getting her to hate her body and be thin so she can become a beauty queen. Olive isn't fat at all. She looks like a normal kid. This isn't light humor, but biting commentary about society.
The middle part of the film is a bit like the movie "Vacation." Unfortunately, there are some plot problems that couldn't be ignored so I took away a star.
Once the family reaches The Little Miss Sunshine Pagant, be ready to be hit over the head with some of the funniest comedy I've seen in a long time. My friend who first asked, "Is this a comedy?" couldn't stop laughing.
I felt like we had listened to the details of a very long joke and were finally given the punchline.