(Yes, I know Little Miss Sunshine was in theaters eight months ago and came out on DVD four months ago, but I don’t watch movies like normal people. If you want timely reviews, I’m not your guy.)
I had preconceptions about this story of a dysfunctional family trying to get their little girl to a beauty pageant. For one thing, I had a strong recommendation in hand from a good friend who is a master student of English and American literature. She carries a lot of that perspective into her movie watching, so her recommendations usually break cerebral to some degree. Also, curiously, I had received a warning from another friend that it might not be a good film for me to watch with Lea.
Add all of this up, and I expected comedic elements to be constituents of a visceral drama of some sort.
But it’s not a drama. Up one side it’s screwball and sweet; down the other, it manages simultaneous subtlety and ruthlessness in its satire. Both sides work. As much as I hate the term, I’d call it a “feel-good” movie for the moderately to severely cynical.
It’s also an ideal example of a film being more than the sum of its parts. You’ve seen all of the characters and scenarios before, but the charm of the film is that it has its own rhythm that isn’t quite like anything else I can remember. There were several scenes in which it zagged when I expected it to zig, whether in the dialogue, set design, or whatever. Often I resent this as trite and mainpulative, but it’s deft enough in Little Miss Sunshine to be refreshing instead.
It’s cast and acted perfectly. Particular standouts for me were Greg Kinnear as the well-meaning but misguided loser father; Alan Arkin in an Oscar-winning role as his father; and Abigail Breslin as Olive, who never quite walked off with the whole thing, but threatened to every time she was on screen. I also enjoyed seeing Gadsden, Alabama’s own Beth Grant, in a delightfully detestable role as a beauty pageant director that reminded me quite a bit of her portrayal of Kitty “Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!” Farmer in Donnie Darko.
Speaking of the Little Miss Sunshine pageant itself: wow. I doubt these sorts of pageants can be satirized in any conventional sense. To demonstrate how ridiculous it is, you just show it as it is: little girls who may still be wetting the bed hair-sprayed, eyelinered, lipsticked, taffetaed, fishnet-stockinged, and spray-tanned into avatars of high sluttiness, courtesy their demented parents and handlers. It’s all a perfect backdrop for the film’s climax.
I found Little Miss Sunshine without significant flaws and enjoyed it thoroughly. It’s rated R for language, drug use, and sexuality, so don’t watch it with your kindergartener or your jittery mother-in-law.
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Oh, and I loved this movie, too. I saw it right before it faded from the theaters last fall. No significant flaws is a good assessment. It’s a very funny film with a strange mix of sweet and dark moments.