Little Miss Sunshine (Movie Review)

Suicide. Drugs. Nietzche. Divorce.

How could you not love this movie?

Little Miss Sunshine (2006) isn't without its weaknesses, but that doesn't make the film any less enjoyable. I even found myself laughing at the most unlikely of moments, insofar as this film doesn't rely on your usual one-liners or even joke-ridden dialogue. Rather, much of the humor derives from everyday life events that generally frustrate us so much that we fail to appreciate the absurdist, comical aspects.

[Think: toilet paper stuck to your shoe while delivering a very important farewell address.]

Beyond this, the film does rely on situations and events that go beyond our everyday reality. In this regard the film requires a sort of suspension of disbelief that didn't always work for me.

Example: the seven-year-old daughter in the movie Olive (Abigail Breslin) is cute enough. But she's not — as her big brother later expresses — exactly beauty queen material. So just how did she wind up being runner-up in a pageant that eventually led to her competing in the state finals against an array of anorexics who looked more like full-grown dwarves than they did little girls?

[For the record, Olive's terrible taste in clothing — and her potbelly — reminded me a little of a prepubescent yours truly.]

Her journey to the final competition is the whole reason for the family's road trip, and — though I appreciated it as a plot device — it seemed to serve little purpose other than to satirize the way in which society pressures little girls to look older (and older women to look younger). Believe me, I certainly appreciated this message. But it bothered me to suspend so much disbelief to digest the plot.

Ditto with some of the other connections between character and character traits. This was really strange for me, in that I thought "that's out of character" at some point for each of the six family members — though I otherwise found them to each be very well developed. And while I found these breeches of character to be in error, I found their general dynamic to be rather appealing.

As such, the characters worked well together. From the family members themselves, to the actors who played them. It seems wrong to highlight particular members of this ensemble cast, since I enjoyed each of their performances.

Overall, an enjoyable film that could've used the occasional tweak.