A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Little Miss Sunshine

Date Viewed: 8/26/06

Details:

Abigail Breslin (Olive)

Greg Kinnear (Richard)

Paul Dano (Dwayne)

Alan Arkin (Grandpa)

Toni Collette (Sheryl)

Steve Carell (Frank)

Directed by: Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris

Screenplay: Michael Arndt

Score: +

The Review: Insanity on yellow wheels. And you will never ever think about children's beauty pageants in quite the same way again.

Olive, the youngest daughter, has won a regional beauty contest and been invited to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant competition in southern California. Don't try to figure out the premise -- Olive (Breslin) is not your typical children's pageant entrant, with no make-up and a bit on the pudgy side, albeit with a winning personality and some odd performance talent we haven't seen yet. And don't try to imagine the family -- the simple word "dysfunctional" is unable to contain within it all the varieties of personality disturbance you are about to witness. The family cannot afford to fly, but Olive is so insistent that she attend that eventually they give in, choose to stuff the entire family into their yellow VW microbus (leaving behind the "shovels and rakes and implements of destruction"), and drive Olive cross-country to the competition.

And of course, nothing goes right -- nothing went right while we were back at home, so why should this be any different? They're on a tight time schedule, but their microbus experiences a minor meltdown and can no longer be started except by a downhill push -- so they figure out how to never shut it off, making for challenging pit-stops. Things turn dark, and so forth... On the surface, it would seem that this would be ripe territory for slipping into the Book of Job metaphor, and heap upon the unsuspecting family all manner of ills in some misplaced belief that it's actually funny. But surprisingly, for all that befalls them, the Book of Job was not used as a template for the screenplay. (Many thanks, Michael Arndt! You have my vote for the next one.)

Excellent pacing and character development. Just when you let down your guard and begin to watch the Little Miss Sunshine competition, you suddenly become aware of what exactly Olive's talent performance is. The laughs never stop -- for all that the film starts out both oddly and a bit slow (picking up the brother from the hospital after a failed suicide attempt), it picks up interest and momentum extremely rapidly, and you're hooked.

Excellent cast and fantastic screenplay. Recommended.

(1-Jan-07)

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