A movie I know I'll treasure forever

Rating: 10/10 (19 November 2006)

It has probably one of the gayest titles for a movie ever conceived and the plot sounds boringly familiar ('The Simpsons' on a road trip) but I'm sure when this decade is out Little Miss Sunshine will be considered by many to be one of the classics of the noughties.
It follows the Hoovers, a family so dysfunctional none of them want to be on the same planet as each other, who decide nevertheless to travel across America in a mini-bus so little Olive (Abigail Breslin) can compete in the Little Miss Sunshine Beauty Pageant. Mum Sheryl (Toni Collette) smokes like a chimney but remains in a total state of denial and Dad Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a motivational speaker whose speeches are so unoriginal nobody who attends his seminars comes away inspired. Sheryl's brother Frank (Steve Carell) is a gay Proust scholar who recently attempted suicide and is now being forced to stay in their sight. Bribed into going with them is Dwayne (Paul Dano), their sullen, alienated teenage son who's become fed up with everybody to the point where he has taken a vow of silence until he becomes an air force fighter pilot. And Richard's dad Edwin (Alan Arkin) was sent to move in with his son after being kicked out of his nursing home for snorting cocaine. Along the way, the six all learn to live with each other AND themselves, discovering that misery truly loves company.
This film is indeed a rare gem: a movie that will make you laugh AND smile, making you leave the theatre with a warm, fuzzy feeling. First-time directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (a husband-and-wife team who made a name for themselves directing Red Hot Chili Peppers videos) have made a superbly restrained directorial debut, successfully weaving comedy and drama while obliterating obvious nods to "dysfunctional family" TV sitcoms and getting away with strangely welcomed sentimentality. Also, Michael Arndt has produced one of the freshest and most well-written screenplays in quite a while.
It also has one of the strongest acting ensembles of recent memory. Little Abigail Breslin gives a genuinely touching performance as the ugly duckling Olive who doesn't think she can win, Arkin matches her as the cantankerous grandfather who gives her someone to look up to other than her workaholic father, Carell (giving Robin Williams a run for his money) gets a great chance to show off his dramatic acting as the pushover Frank and he succeeds with flying colours and Kinnear and Collette are their ever-brilliant selves.
However, for me the real stand-out performer here is rising star Paul Dano (SPOILER COMING!). While the rest of the cast were just brilliant, Dano blows them all off the screen - although it is pretty obvious Dano is much older than his character, but then again that's a norm in Hollywood. This isn't just because as an 18-year-old guy I found Dwayne the character the easiest to identify with. Dwayne is admittedly the LEAST original character in the piece but Dano takes him far beyond the usual rebellious teenage son cliché. Granted he has no dialogue for roughly the first the three quarters of the film would have made it twice as hard for him to portrays those emotions of pure, dormant teenage angst and alienation, a task that would have daunted me. Also a lesser actor of his age would have simply made the character explode (for an example of this see Justin Chatwin in 'War of the Worlds'), but Dano keeps Dwayne as a ticking time-bomb of fury ever ready to erupt (even in the scene when he snaps after learning from Frank that he's colour-blind and, as a result, won't be able to become a pilot Dano still gets away with it). This is truly is a star-making performance of the strongest kind, and if Paul doesn't earn a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for it I'll eat my words. Incredible.
END OF SPOILERS!
I only just saw this two days ago, but even know I'm certain Little Miss Sunshine is one of those very rare movie gems that I'll always cherish. Go and see it now and I promise you'll be amused, moved and uplifted at the same time. An instant classic.
10/10 Catch ya!