Steve Carell breaks away from the shallow studio comedies for a spin in this smart and hilarious indie.
Comedies of late are more about laughing at others (the over-the-top quirky goofball characters) than they are about us laughing at ourselves. Little Miss Sunshine (Official, IMDb) is going to change this... This is a story about us - about the world we live in - the one we really live in, not the one we show the neighbors. It's a story of fear - of our insecurities and their judges.
Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (a husband and wife team with a lot of music in their bio), Little Miss Sunshine is a story about our fear of failure and our struggle to constantly face-off against possible failure - and of course how family makes survival possible - no matter how crazy your family is.
Mild Plot Spoiler
Let's meet the Hoovers:
Frank (Steve Carell): A gay college professor who attempts suicide because his gay student/lover has left him.
Grandpa (Alan Arkin): He was kicked out of his assisted living community for snorting heroin. Yes, heroin.
Dwayne (Paul Dano): A skinny fifteen year old, who refuses to speak until he gets into the Air Force Academy; and he has a thing for Friedrich Nietzsche.
Richard (Greg Kinnear): The middle-aged father whose mid-life crisis is not a red convertible, but the idea that he can resurrect his status and family with a lame 9-step program that transforms losers into winners.
Sheryl (Toni Collette, The Night Listener): A mother and wife whose only flaw is that she loves her family enough to let them be themselves - no matter what.
And finally Olive (Abigail Breslin): the adorably chunky little girl whose only dream in life is to be a beauty queen (one who eats ice cream.)
Michael Arndt's script takes this bunch on, what the Little Miss Sunshine website calls, a "tragicomic journey" aboard an old, VW bus (yellow since school is in - for us anyway.) The destination? California and in time for the uber-freaky child beauty contest: Little Miss Sunshine.
At the start, the only one who wants to be on the trip is Olive. And it shows. If Arndt didn't go far enough on any one aspect of this story, it's in this initial oil-water mixing of these troubled characters. He has the perfect opportunity to go way beyond enough since he's given Olive a CD player and headphones, locking her away for the most graphic adult stuff - this isn't a bad family, just a really screwed up family.
Little Miss Sunshine is cast perfectly. Alan Arkin steals the show as the foul mouthed take-it-from-me Grandpa. Kinnear uses some subtle mannerisms to show us a man not only under pressure, but one who perhaps is struggling with the things he must believe in most. Carrell is not the funniest in the lot - and he shouldn't be; let's not forget that this is a man who wants to kill himself. His comedy is subtle, and he is ultimately the most sane that this family can offer.
One could be heady with regard to Little Miss Sunshine's protagonist: the world, ourselves... but the real protagonist here is another character Arndt gives us: the yellow van. This is the van from hell. Heartless and hilarious in it's attempts to keep the Hoovers from reaching California. So funny you'll want more of this - perhaps another area where Arndt backs off maybe a little too early.
Try and catch Little Miss Sunshine in the theater. Have your pizza and wine after - and go with friends - this is the funniest indie of the year and it will give you plenty to talk about.
Various Little Miss Sunshine things:
- Best line: "I'm madly in love with you and it doesn't have anything to do with your brain or personality." (Alan Arkin)
- Marc Turtletaub purchased the LMS script for $250,000 and covered the budget himself
- Fox Searchlight purchased distribution rights at Sundance for a record breaking 10.5 million
Production Companies
- Big Beach Films
- Third Gear Productions
- Deep River Productions
- Bona Fide Productions
Distributors
- Fox Searchlight Pictures
