Little Miss Sunshine (USA) (Fox Searchlight) (2006) ****Year: 2006iMDB
Director: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris Cast: Abigail Breslin, Steve Carell, Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin
Take The Royal Tenenbaums and add moments of uplifting feelings to it and you might just get Little Miss Sunshine.
Welcome to another example of a "typical" American dysfunctional family - grumpy outspoken grandpa (Arkin), father - a motivational speaker preaching the ways of becoming a winner in life (Kinnear), suicidal gay uncle (Carell), nihilist son who took a vow of silence until he can enter flight academy (Dano)... And 7 year old Olive (Breslin) who, trained by her grandpa, manages to surprisingly win a spot in the "Little Miss Sunshine" pageant final and gets the entire family on a roadtrip towards sunny California where her dreams may come true.
Full of both dark humor and true laugh-out-loud moments, with touching moments that manage to not be overbearing, but rather quickly turn into another absurd or hillarious event, Little Miss Sunshine is perhaps the fist small gem of the year.
Posted by TheCasualCritic on September 4, 2006 09:33 AM | TrackBack