Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, 2006)
02 August 2006
The darling of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’ Little Miss Sunshine features the same quirky characters now typical of Park City acquisitions released in the late-summer movie lull. But unlike previous examples like Garden State and Me, You, and Everyone We Know, whose stories tended toward the characters’ relationships as mismatched couples, Sunshine follows a family. A hopelessly distraught family.
Abigail Breslin plays Olive, the pudgy, short-sighted, and wonderfully vulnerable seven-year-old who, through a fluke, finds herself a finalist for the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Forced to go by her unrelenting excitement, forced to drive by her father’s doomed practice as a motivational speaker, and forced to include the entire family by her uncle’s recent suicide attempt, the six-member crew piles into a deteriorating VW bus, headed for Redondo Beach, in what becomes an inventive and energetic road movie.
Yet, this debut film thrives more on heart than story. Writer Michael Arndt sacrifices scope in favor of the film’s ceaseless drive toward a climactic scene on the California pageant stage. Most of the personal conflicts behind Olive’s heroin-addicted grandfather, silent brother, and nervous mother are inadequately discarded along the road. As a result, we see only the eccentric detail on the exterior of characters we wish we knew better.
Sunshine is, nevertheless, a satisfying comedy. Its camerawork beautifully accentuates the distance the family travels, as well as the distance it keeps between itself; cinematographer Tim Suhrstedt’s plays with bright color are particularly impressive. Comedy veteran Steve Carell steals every scene in his more serious role as the suicidal uncle Frank, the country’s foremost Proust scholar depressed by the usurpation of his crown by scholar number two (who, unlike Frank, looks nothing like Proust). And while Sunshine is both an unhappy and imperfect story, it motivates. Like Olive’s family, you will do most anything to see this journey through.
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Little Miss Sunshine (2006) ~ directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris; written by Michael Arndt; produced by Albert Berger, et. al.; cinematography by Tim Suhrstedt; edited by Pamela Martin; original music by Mychael Danna and Devotchka; with Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Paul Dano, and Alan Arkin ~ in theaters now.
Photo caption: Sound of silence. Steve Carell and Paul Dano in Little Miss Sunshine. From the Fox Searchlight trailer.
i disagree with your comment that little miss sunshine is unhappy (as noted in your final sentence).
although there are unhappy moments, overall it is a bittersweet and honest portrayal of a family - showing both the ups and downs.
for me, the ups were good enough to consider it happy.