Little Miss Sunshine - A Review

To be blunt, Little Miss Sunshine is one of the most disappointing films that I have seen in a couple of years. And perhaps that is my mistake since I went to the cinema with high expectations given what I had read and seen about the movie in reviews and conversations. If some films can overcome individual elements and problems and achieve more as a whole than one would think possible, Sunshine as a whole is much less than its parts. The movie boasts an excellent cast, including the well known Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell and Alan Arkin. The two lesser known, though experienced, child actors, Paul Dano and Abigal Breslin do a wonderful job in their roles of brother and sister, with Abigal literally being a “little Miss Sunshine” well before she competes in a beauty pageant for the actual title.

All of the actors are great in their roles. Collete and Kinnear are the mother and father of yet another dysfunctional film family - in this case the Hoovers. One of the first scenes in the film finds Collette picking up her brother Frank (Carell) from the hospital after an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Arkin is the brash grandfather who’s been kicked out of a retirement home for his drug use. And Kinnear (the weak link, if there is one among the actors) is an irritating and less than captivating motivational speaker with high hopes of having his “nine-step program to success” become the next big thing in the self-help publishing world. Dano is the older brother who has stopped speaking for months and claims to hate everyone, especially his family, and Breslin is a perky, cheerful child who has the totally unrealistic goal of competing and winning various beauty contests.

Initially the film shows promise. The dinner scene after Frank has been brought to the Hoover home for supervision is hilarious and poignant at the same time, as we see how troubled the family actually is. But once the family leaves home to travel 900 miles to the site of the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, the movie devolves into a thoroughly unsatisfying “road trip” picture. At times it bears an uncanny resemblance to the 1983 National Lampoon’s Vacation, with far too many cliches and manufactured moments of cinematic sentimentality. The scenes at the pageant are not any better, and we are “treated” to the sight of eleven Jon Benet Ramsey clones competing with Breslin for the pageant title. It is creepy to say the least.

As others have commented, Abigail Breslin is a real talent, and can certainly give Dakota Fanning a run for her money as a child actor. I look forward to seeing her in more films, but overall this movie could have been so much better. As it is, I give it only 5 out of 10 dancing fish.

For some other takes on the movie, go here or here.

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