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Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Fox Searchlight Pictures, 1 hr. 42 mins.
Starring:
Abigail Breslin, Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Alan Arkin,
Paul Dano
Directed by:
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris |
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The Sundance Film Festival has been
known to kick out a few unassuming yet memorable buzz-worthy flicks in its
storied past. Well, this year’s 2006 darling is an oddball entry rich with
animated dysfunctional domesticity. In the peculiarly endearing and
offbeat dramedy Little Miss Sunshine, married filmmakers Jonathan Dayton
and Valerie Faris weave together a broad cynical laugher that surprisingly
has convincing pop in its wayward pathos.
Although not robustly riotous by any given means Little Miss Sunshine is
definitely one of these nutty gems that incorporate the boundaries of
insanity and humanity while absurdly steadfast in its observational
microscope. Word has it that the movie’s distributor (Fox Searchlight)
paid a pretty penny for this fractured family affair and their on-the-road
escapades in bleak togetherness. Amusingly caustic, satirically droll and
infectious in its insightful rigors about the American fragmented family
unit, Little Miss Sunshine is a ray of off-kilter sliced slapstick waiting
to burst at the seams. With Michael Arndt’s solid and snappy script, the
loony and layered performances and a dosage of outrageousness stemming
from everything concerning irresponsible parenting to the rescued malaise
of porn, Little Miss Sunshine is an inventive concoction that challenges
the notion of familial frustration.
Some may recall the recently released Robin Williams’s forgettable feeble
farce RV in which a detached brood took to the highway in search of
self-discovery amidst the pending tension of percolating disillusionment.
The combination of Williams’s misplaced jocularity and the cliched
vehicular antics that ensued as an awkward analogy for a bunch of lost
souls going absolutely nowhere didn’t quite register with the zany
intentions expected. However, the Hoover clan remarkably pulls off the
similar sentiments that were lacking in RV’s empty gas tank. For starters,
the depth of breezy depravity and isolation is so realized in the
unbalanced characterizations that Little Miss Sunshine is a welcomed car
wreck waiting to happen.
As the hapless head honcho of the Hoover household, ineffective and inept
motivational speaker Richard (Greg Kinnear) blindly guides his
Southwest-stationed loved ones to a Californian (Redondo Beach) preteen
beauty pageant for the benefit of the film’s youngest heroine in the form
of “Little Miss Sunshine” Olive Hoover (Abigail Bresnan). As the Hoovers
hit the road en route to their Olive’s desired destination concerning
congeniality contests and crowns, they are hampered in their tiring
travels courtesy of a broken-down deep yellow Volkswagon van to accompany
the weary eccentricities that make up each frazzled family member’s
disorientation.
In addition to the unctuous Richard (his toothless self-help advice in
tow) along with the wide-eyed chipper Olive, the rest of the gang aren’t
exactly what you would call soundly stable. Wife/mother Sheryl (Toni
Collette) is the sympathetic glue that tries to hold her band of misfits
in place emotionally and psychologically. Older sibling Dwayne (Paul Dano)
is a moping mute looking to find some sort of bizarre liberation in his
self-inflicted vow of silence. Uncle Frank (Emmy-nominated Steve Carell
from NBC-TV’s “The Office”) is a suicidal scholar/Proust expert that
adopts a sullen disposition in his “unlucky-in-love” phase. And perverse
Grandpa (Alan Arkin) has a favorable penchant for pornography, being a
potty-mouth and harboring a heroine addiction.
As perceived, Little Miss Sunshine may be one of these over-extended
ditties where “the misery loves company” mode treads dangerously in
well-known territory. Nevertheless, the husband-and-wife directorial turn
by Dayton and Faris is a winning one because they instinctively instill a
refreshing sense of wackiness and wisdom that give noted life to these
quirky, lovable losers. Sure, the Hoovers are seriously damaged and the
movie has a wicked time flirting with the unlikeliest and various subject
matters at hand (drug abuse, clinical depression, lowered expectations,
lack of emotional cohesiveness, etc.) as its unconventional humorous
pulse. And of course the wry commentary on minors and the stressful impact
of forced beauty pageantry as a disguised grown-up ritual of independence
and feminine empowerment is spirited played for the nervous chuckles that
it provokes.
The creepy entrapments behind the smarmy facade of Little Miss Sunshine
resonate with the right touch of hysteria and heartache. Given that the
film’s stark moodiness and mockery will call for its fair share of
obligatory breakdowns, bust-ups and banality, Sunshine contains the potent
element of quiet desperation that simmers within a group of disfranchised
people bound by blood and blasphemy. The performers are spot-on in their
brand of drudgery and disdain. Young cast members Breslin (“Signs”) and
Dano (“The Girl Next Door”) shine in distinctive adolescent angst. As the
vulnerable parents both Kinnear and Collette are joyously wounded in their
clueless state of mind. And the ubiquitous Carell (especially veteran
character actor Arkin) brings forth a disturbing revelation that’s as
haunting as it is subtly hilarious.
Strangely compelling in its weirdness and gracefulness this is clearly one
of the most skillfully warped family farces that ever took its cockeyed
conviction on the dusty streets of a regressive, ideal landscape of
Americana. Resourcefully, the hazardous Hoovers thumb their disjointed
noses at the synthetic vibes of the so-called American dream. In a complex
society that aimlessly toasts the inane and inappropriate, this flippant
fabric of one family’s out-of-control spiral into everyday contrivance
conquers the wandering imagination.
Little Miss Sunshine, with all its tainted allure, is indeed a crowning
achievement of maverick indie filmmaking at its stimulating peak. |
