Movie Review: Little Miss Sunshine

I have to admit this: what I was really expecting from this movie was "Little Miss Lukemia Patient" whose 'fragile, tiny spirit of bravery would conquer all odds'. It turns out, the only thing right I got out of that preconception was the 'all odds' part.

This is actually a very well realised story about a disfunctional family that needs to take a road trip. That in itself is deeply contrived, and yet it doesn't exactly ever feel contrived. In fact, at any given point in the story, I wasn't jarred by something being either too absurd or too simplistic to be believable. And if you just look at the basic plot points, that's a remarkable achievement! And while the plot is charming, it's the characters that grab your attention. We're introduced to each by her or his particular vice or foible. That's a particularly brilliant step, because if you know someone's habit, you know her deepest secret. And we go on to know each of these characters pretty well.

As we're introduced to a socially awkward set of circumstances, I feared another Napoleon Dynamite. And then when I discovered that Little Miss Sunshine is actually the name of one of those ghastly child beauty pageants, I feared the film would turn into a celluloid callamity a la Christopher Guest (Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, etc.). And yet it carefully navigated between the absurdity of the situation and the reality of its characters, miraculously staying true to both.

And along the way, Sunshine certainly has some fun with the whole pretentious, gritty and character-maiming potential humans all share. How could it not? But every point it makes about what life means (or what it doesn't) is a gentle point. Overall this is not a neat, tidy and safe little story. Rather it's carefully, gently and occasionally brutally honest. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself!