A Genuine Surprise

Rating: 9/10 (5 March 2007)

I believe that the clever marketing of this fantastic movie made people come back in larger and larger crowds until it couldn't be ignored that it was a force to be acknowledged because as advertised, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE had the makings of a straight-forward comedy. When seen in its entirety however, it reveals itself as much more -- a deeply complex dramedy that burrows under the skin of these extremely dysfunctional people locked together in a make-or-break road trip. It couldn't have been released at a better time -- the height of summer, when releases have the look and feel of desperation due to the fact that they've been shelved to the end of the summer blockbuster season and thrown at the public like ragged leftovers.
This one is a winner in every aspect. It's actually a rather dark movie, dealing with subject matters that are hardly the basis for laughter. Dad (Greg Kinnear) is not a nice person: he believes in winning at all costs and has this thing about self-help that borders on crazy, more so because he himself is a brittle man. Mom (Toni Collette) is trying to help her gay brother (Steve Carell) out who has attempted suicide over a romantic abandonment. Dwayne (Paul Dano) has his own issues with his family, which he hates. Grandpa (Alan Arkin) has a heroin addiction and has the subtlety of a self-conscious train wreck. Olive (Abigail Breslin), the little girl at the center of all this mess, is the glue who ties them together when they threaten to fray at the seams, is remarkable.
Olive has by chance, won a pass to participate in a beauty contest. However, she doesn't look or act like any of these little girls who have been groomed since babyhood into becoming pint-sized women -- aspiring Jon-Benets. The contest is to be held in California, and off they go in a broken-down VW bus (often seen in the movies promos). Of course... this is where the limits of tolerance will come to light, and where the movie takes its incursion into much darker areas masked under the banana yellow of the van.
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE doesn't have any standout images, or clever editing to boast. Tremendous acting by the entire ensemble, although Alan Arkin gets dropped off the plot a little too soon -- I wanted more, but that's okay. There's also never a moment when you doubt this family of misfits, and the sequence when Olive takes the stage is a showstopper in its clumsiness because it's been hinted all along she doesn't fit into this mold -- not because she's not beautiful, a winner in her own right, but because she's too good to be degraded like that. Which is what the movie in its own is -- much too good to be penned into any given audience, much too good to be bogged down by merits. It's really the story of the little film that could.