Little Miss Sunshine Review

 ”Too bright to miss. Charming and relatable.”

 Summer blockbusters aren’t always the hits.  It’s sometimes an underdog movie about an underdog that really hits the mark with people.  With word of mouth and critcal rave reviews, Little Miss Sunshine didn’t need a push start to break into the hearts of movie-goers in this fall season.  As many readers of this delightfully tright rag may have already recognized, I’m very cautious around independent movies.  I like to read reviews and get word of mouth from reliable sources before I drop the bills to see them.  While I support the idea of doing films that are personal and on your own, I will not fund stupidity. Happy to say, I funded a truely charming and wonderful film in Little Miss Sunshine.

While some say that the only independent film genre is about dysfunctional families(i.e. Lonesome Jim, Garden State, Squid and the Whale)  this generation of humans truely lives in a dysfunctional time.  These movies resonate with audiences because they are human characters that could be you or the person next to you.  Little Miss Sunshine does a pristine job exemplifying this ideal.  While their relationships are as screwed up as the situations they get in, you cannot help but feel not only bad, but almost heartfelt relation to their problems.  Each character also exemplifies general qualities in most families.  It’s the heart strings they play upon that make this movie move so to speak, but never take’s itself so seriously.

Oh yes, it’s very funny.  Steve Carell may be the funniest man in movies and TV at the moment, and truely delivers a very special preformance.  Greg Kinnear nails it again as well as the other actors, including the little girl, who plays naivety like it was the only thing she knows.  But the truely great preformance, one in my opinion that should be nominated for an Academy Award, is the grand-father, played by Alan Arkin.  He stole scenes, had the best lines, and resonated throughout the entire film, not just through his preformance, but his presence in the characters life.  He was truely the strongest part of the movie.

The story moves along very well and really delivers to the audience while not giving everything away.  The more I’ve thought about this movie, the more I realize that the ending was effective.  At first I was kind of dissapointed, but I think that’s because it has too much charm going for it. Some scenes were so doused in hillarity that I doubled over crying.  I haven’t done that in awhile.  Beyond a sour tasting ending, I really liked what this movie offered. I’m not the guy who always wants a happy ending, but I do believe in some sort of answer.  Ambiguity can work, but for some stories, the smallest tie in/shot can really finish the movie off right. The filming captured it’s setting wonderfully and aesthetically linked the images to the feelings(i.e. the dumpy bus).

In this story of unfortunate’s fortunately bringing together a dysfunctional family in it’s own screwed up way, the audience is looking in a hyperbolized mirror. The reflection is never too serious, but just serious enough to only feel for the characters.  You only want to see more, but may have to settle with only the bits of the characters that you most relate to. Your also left to wonder the future of the family after everything.  A bit too respective of the audience, but perhaps it’s that broad of a question.  Little Miss Sunshine offers a laugh and thought, neither of which are very far behind the other.  This movie get’s a 9 out of 10 Bones, with 1 Bone for the sour-taste at the end.

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