Little Miss Sunshine

Best movie ever ! Family love!Don’t give up ever!

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At the beginning of "Little Miss Sunshine", everyone seems to be floating in a kind of Proustian soup--a fact marked by the screenwriters when they make one of the ensemble cast, Frank,who has just lost his lover and attempted suicide "the world's #1 Proust scholar". The three adult male members--Frank, the uncle (Steve Carell), father Richard (Greg Kinnear), and Richard's father (Alan Arkin, "Grandpa"), come at us with eyes full of a sense of a life somehow gone off the track, much as little Olive, the title character, bounces cheerily in with eyes full of hope and dreams. Paul Dano, as teenage Dwayne, in a vow of silence that allows his character to play the tortured adolescent brilliantly by showing no affect whatsoever and through scribbled notes like "Welcome to Hell" and "Please don't kill yourself tonight", still hangs on to two dreams--getting away from his family, and being a test pilot for the Air Force. Mom Sheryl (Toni Colette), quirky in her own way, ("Olive, you can be fat or thin, whichever you want,") is the glue that seems to hold this bunch together.When Olive gets a chance to participate in the finals of a beauty contest in another state, the family pack up in the yellow VW van. On the way, dad keeps in touch with the guru who's supposed to get his first book off the ground, of which he told mom "This is it," an apparent promise to get his office out of her kitchen. He excitedly shares his "9 Step" self help program to everyone. Grandpa, who has been helping Olive with the "talent" part of her performance, sneaks into the bathroom to snort some of the cocaine that got him kicked out of the retirement home and into the Hoovers' household. Frank seems to be growing comfortable with this quirky family of his sister's, particularly Dwayne.But before they reach the Redondo Beach hotel where the pageant takes place, losses or the poignant memories knock the wind out of each of the yellow, sunshiny bus's passengers. Painful (and expensive) as these problems threaten to be, no one suggests turning back.Once in Redondo Beach, afraid the pageant is not for Olive, they are tempted to "protect" her from her own dream. After all, they've all just been a little bruised, they don't want her to feel such pain. But instead, they find a way to temper the consequences of living those dreams out, a little. In doing so, they craft a last scene full of all the comedic command of Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, an up and coming little Abigail Breslin, other members of this stupendous cast, and a certain funky number by the late Rick James.*********DVD EXTRASThis DVD is worthwhile in that the directors' and writers' comments are helpful in understanding the film. I'm surprised to hear, for example, that the directors thought the scene with Frank (Steve Carell) in the convenience store (no spoilers, sorry) would be funny. It will break your heart--as will the one scene where Dwayne does become emotional.The camera technique used by having a camera in the back and front of the bus (and several different busses) gave more of a sense of what the crew and cast were going through on this low-budget film: clearly a labor of love.Don't get too excited over the 4 alternate endings. 1 of them is Abigail Breslin's (Olive) ending, "with Abigail Breslin directing" and you can pretty much guess the 2 minute ending she would have liked. It's funny, but it was never seriously considered.

The timing of the film's theatrical release with the latest bombshell about the JonBenet case is practically uncanny. However, as a viewing of the DVD will plainly show, the satiric critique of the Little Miss Living Doll beauty pageants is relatively contained, occupying the last 20 minutes, though the point is unmistakable. The ultra polished, talented contestants against whom the film's slightly pudgy and awkward hero, Olive, competes aren't so much little girls as miniature Las Vegas show queens, coached in seductive eye use and sexy posturing. How ironic that the manager of the beauty contest is scandalized by Olive, whose "improper" strip tease, taught to her by her grandfather, doesn't contain a hint of seduction or sexuality.Olive's quest to be a beauty queen appears to align her with other members of her family. Her obtuse, self-programmed father, who preaches #1 or none, wants to be a published authority on positive thinking and winning. Her suicidal, sensitive, gay uncle wants to be recognized as the world's #1 Proust scholar. Her introverted, tormented and driven brother wants to be a jet pilot in his own private Nietzschean world. Toni Collette as the mom, on the other hand, is the model of tolerance and forebearance, a supportive "gamer" whose ability to eat ice cream without guilt fortunately has a more profound effect on her daughter than the father's insistence on winning at any cost.By the end of the film, our family of losers ultimately emerge as true winners. Alan Arkin, as the profane patriarchal grandfather, provides the film's enduring wisdom, counseling both his son and granddaughter (Abigail Breslin deserves a supporting actress award for this scene alone) before his death about the importance of simply living life to the fullest. A real winner, he tells the family, is someone "who's not so afraid of losing he's afraid to try." It's not the destination that matters; it's the trip. And the film literally offers one hell of a ride. Apart from some raw language, this is a family film recommended for all dysfunctional families who enjoy crying as much as laughing together.At the same time, thanks to inventive scripting and directing, this little gem transcends the "family film" genre, providing moments of subtlety, nuance, and genuine "life." The very different, often ambivalent, responses of various members of the pageant to Olive's performance suggest that not everyone buys into the Little Miss America mentality. And again the mom is the one member of the family who has sufficient confidence in her daughter to sense that the men's concern about Olive's being "laughed at" speaks less about Olive than their own childish fears and self-consciousness.Finally, by making Grandpa the unlikely voice of wisdom, the film takes on universal, life-affirming resonance. "Little Miss Sunshine" counters our tendency to see living merely as a "means" to some distant end or goal. Often the means needs no justification: being fully alive in the here and now can be the biggest prize of all.Count this one is an all-around winner--an entertaining, formulaic movie with enough twists, vitality, heart, and thought to almost atone for all of those long, dull "Talledega Nights" which moviegoers increasingly have to endure as part of their desensitizing training.

Great movie