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Little
Miss Sunshine
(2006)
Simply put, this relatively small budgetted independent
production is the best film of 2006 so far.
Olive (Abigail Breslin), a young girl who dreams of being a
beauty queen, wins a spot in the finals of the Little Miss
Sunshine contest in California. Her dysfunctional family is
determined to get her there no matter what, so they pile into
their VW bus for a road trip that will change their lives.
Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who come from
a background of television commercials and music videos, make
an impressive feature film debut. Despite their background,
this isn't a film that values style over substance. To their
credit, Dayton and Faris focus on the story and the acting.
It's part black comedy, part serious drama, and toward the
end it becomes a satire of beauty pageants. One moment you'll
be laughing, the next you'll be crying, but rarely will you
feel like you're watching a piece of fiction on a screen. You'll
feel like you're inside the characters' lives. I was pleasantly
surprised by how often Michael Arndt's script confounded my
expectations of what would happen next. When you've seen as
many films as I have, that's not easy to do. It has a happy
ending, just not the kind of happy ending a Hollywood film
might have.
The cast shines like finely polished gems. Nine-year-old Abigail
Breslin (Signs) is utterly charming as Olive, a smart
but awkward girl with big dreams. Equally impressive, as her
dysfunctional family, are Greg Kinnear as her aspiring self-help
guru father, Toni Collette as her supportive but overwhelmed
mother, Paul Dano as her teenage brother who's taken a vow
of silence after reading Nietzsche, Alan Arkin as her wild,
heroin-addicted grandfather, and Steve Carell (The Forty-Year-Old
Virgin) as her suicidal gay uncle. Also good in smaller roles
are Mary Lynn Rajskub as a pageant assistant, Beth Grant as
a pageant official, and Dean Norris as a state trooper.
Cinematographer Tim Suhrstedt (Office Space) lends the film
a naturalistic look that won't distract the audience from the
story or the characters. The score by Mychael Danna (Capote)
and the self-described "eastern bloc indie rock band" DeVotchKa
is by turns either somber or giddy. Some of the giddy music
sounds similar to klezmer, but DeVotchKa is known for their
Romani, Greek, and Slavic folk influences.
Not only is it the best film of 2006 to date, it's the best
film I've seen since November 2005. That was when I saw Rent,
which I later ranked as the best film of 2005. Like Rent, Little
Miss Sunshine is a wonderfully life affirming film. When it
was shown at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year,
it received a standing ovation and rightly so. I can't recommend
it highly enough.
-Danielle
Ní Dhighe
Other
Thoughts: Mark Moreland 
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All contents ©
2004-2009 Thoughtsonfilm.com |
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Director:
Jonathan
Dayton & Valerie Faris
Writer: Michael
Arndt
Starring: Toni
Collette, Greg Kinnear, Abigail Breslin, Alan Arkin, Steve Carell,
Paul Dano,
Distributor: Fox
Searchlight
Runtime: 101
min
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: August
18, 2006
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