Little Miss Sunshine
Movie Review
"Little Miss Sunshine"
Review by Eric D. Snider
Grade: B
Rating: R
Released: Friday, August 11, 2006
Directed by:
Cast:
- Steve Carell
- Toni Collette
- Greg Kinnear
- Alissa Anderegg
- Alan Arkin
- Cassandra Ashe
- Abigail Breslin
- Paul Dano
- Erik David
- Erik David
- Jerry Giles
- Beth Grant
- Grant Hayes
- Ksenia Jarova
- Lindsey Jordan
- Mark Kubr
- Chuck Loring
- Julio Oscar Mechoso
- Geoff Meed
- Robert O'Connor
- Steven Christopher Parker
- Jennessa Rose
- Julianna Rose
- Joan Scheckel
- Justin Shilton
I'm writing this review of "Little Miss Sunshine" on Feb. 22, exactly four weeks after I saw the film at Sundance. Usually there isn't such a gap between screening the movie and reviewing it, of course, but this was the 24th movie I saw at the festival, and I had to write the other 23 reviews first.
The problem is that now, almost a month later, I'm not sure why I liked "Little Miss Sunshine" as much as I did. I jotted "B+" in my notes at the end of the screening, and I remember laughing most of the way through it. But as I look at my notes, and as I recall the details, I think: This movie is derivative.
It's one of those indie comedies about a dysfunctional family where everyone is screwed up in some particular way, and I've seen that movie a thousand times. There's even a lengthy sequence that's stolen from "National Lampoon's Vacation" and doesn't fit in this movie at all. I know I thought it was a B+ on Jan. 25, but time has faded my feelings and all I'm left with now are the facts, which are less complimentary.
Kids, this is why you should always write your reviews within a few days of seeing the movie.
Now then. The Hoovers are a middle-class family in Albuquerque with a host of problems. Richard (Greg Kinnear), the father, is a motivational speaker, but he seems to be failing at that, which is somewhat ironic, you'll agree. Mom Sheryl (Toni Collette) has her act together, but her gay college professor brother Frank (Steve Carell), America's "most highly regarded Proust scholar," has just attempted suicide. Richard's father (Alan Arkin) has been evicted from a retirement home because of his heroin addiction.
Richard and Sheryl's children have not been spared, either. Seven-year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin), a little pudgy and plain, wants to enter beauty pageants. Her brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) is 15, has been reading Nietzsche, and has decided to take a vow of utter silence until he gets into the Air Force Academy. He's got nothing to say to his messed-up relatives anyway.
The movie takes off when the six Hoovers pile into the minivan and head to California, where Olive has been invited to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. Are they bound for three days of bickering, sulking and ultimately reconciling? Indeed they are. Do they encounter all manner of vehicular wackiness along the way, including a van that won't start unless everyone's pushing it? Heavens, yes!
This is a comedy of angst, with bitter, dark laughs that belie the film's eventual "families gotta stick together" message. Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, working from a script by Michael Arndt, find regular amusement in the family's sullenness, often arranging shots with all six of them together, not smiling, not looking at each other, just silently being miserable.
And it's funny. My goodness, it's funny. That much I remember. Steve Carell continues his hot streak with a subtle turn as Frank, and Greg Kinnear plays his smarmy, clueless character for all it's worth. The humor is more verbal than physical, and the delivery from these two particular squeezes out more hilarity than you'd have thought the lines contained.
What the film is not is a classic. It's good for some laughs, but I don't see it holding up to multiple viewings, particularly some of the more shenanigan-oriented sequences (including an eye-roller of a bit that involves corpse-stealing). See, here it is, only a month later, and already I'm over it. I sure liked it on Jan. 25, though.
Grade: B
Rated R, a lot of harsh profanity, a little sexual dialogue
1 hr., 40 min.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
This item has 10 comments
October 31, 2006 at 8:04 am
I'm glad you think this. I don't see what all the hype is about. Where is the character development? Why does the film end so abruptly without denouement? Why are all the 'changes' in the characters so unsurprising and ultimately expected? The movie is cute and enjoyable, but seriously considered, I found it uninspiring, to be polite.
November 18, 2006 at 5:00 pm
I agree; as much as people adored this film, I think this film was a load of cliches, right from the common contemporaries. In fact, this film heartily reminds me of an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, where one member of the family was entered into a contest. After watching that a whole lot of others, this films does nothing more than perhaps reinstating old plot liners. Recycled and reused. Certainly not something I'm excited about seeing. Nevertheless, the gothic boy in the film does ignite some sparks of laughter in me. For that, I guess it's worth something.
December 24, 2006 at 11:14 pm
I agree that there is nothing truly new or original, but I think the movie's charm is that it is, as a whole, superbly made, and it will remain popular, even if there is a tiny fraction of people who prefer the tiresome Napoleon Dynamite (which got an A- rating on this very site, even thoug it has just enough originality to fill a citibank commercial).
January 5, 2007 at 11:20 am
After waiting till it came out on DVD I was so disappointed that I was pissed. Boring predictable. I did'nt even chuckle once.
January 24, 2007 at 3:14 pm
For the most part, I didn't think it was funny at all tho I liked the fact that no matter what, the family always stuck together. The strip dance taught to Olive by her crude/heroin addicted grandfather was kind of pathetic despite the whole family sticking by her. It was evident that no one in the family knew anything about her dance before she did it as seen by the horror/surprise on their faces when they did see it. What kind of family doesn't see what the child is going to do before doing it! Taking the corpse was pathetic/sad. It didn't decompose in the warm VW and start to smell? For the most part, I thought the film was ludicrous.
January 26, 2007 at 11:05 pm
OK, I just saw the movie. My reaction, here is a movie that tried way too hard with a script that just didn't quite cut it.
April 8, 2007 at 3:48 pm
A film that I love because it asked interesting questions, like, "After your singular dream is shattered into a trillion pieces... then what??" How fascinating a question is that? Most dreamers think the question shouldn't even be asked, but reality is taken head on in this film. I didn't love the grampa; his attitude was ridiculous to me, but the rest of the film was inspiring and had a ring of exciting truth in it.
April 24, 2007 at 3:10 pm
All of the comparable movies you previous responders cite highlight the quality of this movie. Sure there are other quirky-to-be-quirky movies, and family road trip movies, and hide the corpse scenes, but this movie balances heart and soul, and frothiness and depth, and reality and caricature, and hope and hopelessness in a beautiful concoction. Maybe the scenes weren't memorable, but he vibe is. Also, spectacular background music and cinematography.
August 13, 2007 at 9:14 am
This was a very good film, hmm you all are negative nancy's.
July 23, 2008 at 11:11 pm
I usually wholeheartedly agree with all of your reviews, but this made me really unhappy.
I think that Little Miss Sunshine overshadows all of the other dysfunctional movies that I personally have seen (and I have seen way too many of those.) Your criteria makes a lot of sense, but I still can't watch this movie without falling over laughing.
Maybe it's because my family is a lot like the Hoovers. I don't know.
I think I will read your reviews a little more carefully next time, though.