The Critic's Corner #4

Little Miss Sunshine
Fox Searchlight Pictures/Big Beach Films
Rated R for language, some sex and drug content
101 minutes

I have a deep appreciation for movies like Little Miss Sunshine, but not for the reasons you might think. When I can watch a film and not absolutely love it on the surface, but can contemplate it later and begin to appreciate its merits in objective terms, that's the kind of picture I think deserves recognition.

A friend mentioned that she thought this movie was hilarious. After it won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, I rented it just to see what all the fuss was about. Alan Arkin, of course, was honored with the Best Supporting Actor Oscar this year, and the film generated a total of 33 wins and an additional 34 award nominations. So it had to be good, right?

I was disappointed. But is there more to this than my initial opinion? Absolutely.

It may have been a bad day for me to watch movies. It may have been that I'm just not intelligent enough to get this film. Nah, don't think so. On the surface, this is a farce of a film about a severely dysfunctional family that pulls together to make a dream come true for its youngest member. I couldn't see the deeper meaning in it until I got away from it for a while.

I've had a chance to stew on it for ... oh, a couple or three weeks now, and I recognize that there are some Oscar-worthy qualities to this film. I took a retrospective look at the individual performances of its cast - Greg Kinnear (Sabrina, As Good As It Gets, You've Got Mail, Invincible), Toni Collette (Muriel's Wedding, Emma, Changing Lanes), Steve Carell (best known for his TV work - The Office - but now making a name for himself on the silver screen), Alan Arkin (with 90 movies to his credit, including Inspector Clouseau, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, The In-Laws, The Rocketeer, and Grosse Pointe Blank), and two relative newcomers, Paul Dano and Abigail Breslin (who have over 30 credits between them already). I realized what made the picture noteworthy as far as the acting was concerned was not so much how the ensemble worked with each other, but more how each individual's performance contributed to the story. I didn't think the players interacted as well with each other as they did just being themselves, which is part of the charm of this film. Each character was so wrapped up in his/her own personal issues that s/he failed to see how closely interconnected with the family s/he was.

Young Olive Hoover (Breslin) is beside herself when she learns she's been chosen to participate in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant as a replacement for another contestant who has a conflict. Her father, Richard (Kinnear), is working on his "Nine Steps to Being a Winner" motivational program - his mantra is "There are two kinds of people in this world - winners and losers". Chain-smoking Mom Sheryl (Collette) - whose idea of a sit-down dinner is a bucket of fried chicken - is just trying to hold the family together after her gay brother Frank (Carell), a renowned Proust scholar, moves in with them following a failed suicide attempt. Olive's brooding half-brother Dwayne (Dano) - who hates everyone - has taken a vow of silence, pledging not to speak until he's accepted into the Air Force Academy's pilot training program, and has succeeded in holding his ground for a staggering nine months. Richard's foul-mouthed, cocaine-snorting father (Arkin) is the only one who seems to take a genuine interest in Olive's ambitions to be a beauty queen, and takes it upon himself to "coach" her for the talent competition. (Oh, boy.)

There is a brief moment of panic while Richard and Sheryl try to work out how they're going to get Olive to California in time for the pageant when Richard needs to meet with a potential backer. Frank can't be left alone, Dwayne doesn't want to be left alone with Frank, and Richard and Sheryl don't trust Grandpa to get Olive across the country safely. So it's decided that the whole family will go - in their worn-down VW bus - budgeting their travel time to give Richard the opportunity to meet with his backer and still get Olive to the pageant.

Sound like a good idea? Of course not. That's where the comedy - dark as it is - begins.

I have to give credit to writer Michael Arndt for coming up with some of the craziest mishaps that could befall this family along their journey (the tag line for the film - "Where's Olive?" - is only one tiny hint of the hilarity that ensues). What takes these events out of the cellar of schtick and into the stratosphere is the intertwining into the plot of one heartbreaking moment which finally seems to unite the family in their cause. There is a profoundly functional element to this otherwise super-dysfunctional family - they do love each other, each in his or her own unorthodox way. In an industry where timing is everything, Arndt structures the world of the Hoovers with expert precision. Each experiences one life-changing moment that brings him to realize that being a part of a family, regardless of how screwed up it is, means a lot more than just being.

By far the most memorable performance of the film is rendered by Abigail Breslin (whose brother Spencer is also an actor) as Olive, whose innocent charm and unjaded view of the world is the undisputed glue that holds her family together, despite their best efforts to separate themselves from the almost tragic reality that is their lives. Olive sees things in black and white, and what she wants more desperately than anything is to not disappoint her father - she doesn't want to be a "loser". Richard's moment of epiphany is a poignant lesson in self-evaluation and the realization of what's more important.

After some soul searching and a bit of retro- and introspection, I decided that Little Miss Sunshine was the kind of film that should be awarded and recognized. Even if you don't find it hilarious, I think you'd do well to watch it just to gain the experience of seeing a film that isn't a razzle-dazzle of special effects, an over-dramatic family saga, or a lighthearted, laugh-a-minute romp of a comedy. Little Miss Sunshine is none of these things. It's more a picture of life and all its moments - good and bad - that shape and mold, inspire and devastate, and teach us that there's more to it than two hours can hold.