Film Review: LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
GINA PUMA says, "LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is brilliantly written by screenwriter Michael Arndt. It is directed by the husband and wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris who have directed many music videos and documentaries. You would never know that this is their first attempt at a feature film.
Although I only saw six films, this was my absolute favorite film at Sundance '06 and judging from the laughter and standing ovation around me, I would say I was not the only one. All of the hoopla that this film is receiving is genuine and well deserved. I don't think I can ever remember a movie that made me laugh and cry at the same time -- all the way through. My eyes were actually burning. I got on the shuttle bus after the movie and found others saying the same thing.
The writer and directors keep you engaged with each of the characters for every second. It is the story of one family's amusingly disastrous emotional and physical journey to a place that none of them thought they would end up. Toni Collette is the matriarch of this crazy bunch. Her character, Sheryl, is struggling to keep her overzealous, unsuccessful, self-proclaimed motivational speaker husband, Richard (Greg Kinnear), from destroying her two children -- Dwayne (Paul Dano), a teenager who hasn’t spoken in 9 months, by his own choice, and Olive (Abigail Breslin), a chubby, simple-looking seven year old who believes she can win a beauty pageant. The movie opens with Sheryl picking up her brother, Frank (THE OFFICE's Steve Carell), from the hospital after a failed suicide attempt. He has nowhere else to go so Sheryl takes him into her home and gives her son, Dwayne, the responsibility of making sure Uncle Frank doesn’t try this again. Also living under Sheryl's roof is Grandpa, played by the amazingly talented and completely hysterical Alan Arkin. Grandpa is Richard's father -— Sheryl's father-in-law -- who was recently evicted from his nursing home because he was caught snorting heroin and refused to quit. Sheryl receives a phone call that Olive has the opportunity to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine Pageant in California and she wants nothing more than to give Olive this opportunity she so desperately wants.
This starts the entire family’s expedition in an old VW Bus from New Mexico to California, otherwise known as, Hell and Back. The trip centers on this broken down VW and this broken down family and takes you, the viewer, for the ride of your life. I can’t wait until this one comes out in our theaters so I can see it again!"
