On this really shitty day, since I couldn’t figure out anything to do outside without getting wet (no you perverts, I’m a guy), I decided to do my favourite anti-social activity and went to my familiar dark movie theatre for a relaxing couple hours of what I hoped would be comedy hence highly able to lighten up the mood. Boy was I wrong… as I had to endure a very long time of painful drama watching hopefully balanced by some emotional acting. May the bastards who labelled this a comedy raise their hand. Not even a dark one... But an purposeless sad touching movie it sure is.
Quickly noticed during this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Little Miss Sunshine could be described roughly as yet another satire/road movie of your typical American dysfunctional family driving across America their charming little daughter, named Olive (what a cute little name), to the little miss sunshine beauty pageant in Redondo Beach California in a dysfunctional 60’s Volkswagen hippie van… that’s for the free spirit picturesque touch and to give a visual cue/identity to this flick which is just in serious need of one.
Let me describe to you quickly the plot of this bastard thing…Steve Carrell, a gay scholar is brought home by his very sweet little sister, played by Toni Colette, to recover from a suicide attempt. There he gets to meet the rest of the family featuring the loser Anthony-Robbins-wanna-be husband (Greg Kinnear), the smart but dark son in the middle of his puberty crisis, the ex-hippie grandfather (Alan Arkin) who also happens to be a junkie and finally, Olive, the only sunshine in this whole I’m-gonna-shoot-myse lf-in-the-face painful to watch drama fest. Well you sure get to see a wonderful ensemble cast, which is also the reason why Fox Searchlight wiped out the cash to pick up that one in the hopes of having their oscar contender of the year.
This film regardless of its lack of clear purpose has a somewhat smart little critique of the whole fear of losing that most American get after 20 years of Tom Cruise movies embed in it. The problem is that this winner loser rhetoric is pretty much the backbone of the story and is used to a point where you just stop caring about it. It seems to me that Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the directors of this movie really didn’t know where to go with it and end up delivering a mostly pointless indie film, which is as uninspired in its story as it is visually. Sure it’s always good to see a movie that doesn’t fit any of the 5 Hollywood money-making formats but you get to wonder what was the motivation of creating this, besides bringing together this wonderful cast.
Steve Carrell has to deliver the best performance of the movie and I was disappointed that his character wasn’t a more central piece of the story, if only there was a story. I suppose he has chosen to alternate a money making comedy with a low profile serious role fit enough for an Oscar nomination. It's too early for that crap dude. Why don't you just make anything good that comes your way and don't follow that highly annoying Robin Williams/Jim Carrey career path.
Now I tell you anyone laughing out loud during this movie ought to be as fucked up as the sad characters in this flick. The few fun scenes can be counted on your whole three fingers, the best one probably being the amusing performance of Olive during the beauty pageant contest. Now if you wanna see a truly refreshing dysfunctional family flick you’d have to look at Wes Anderson’s Royal Tennenbaum as it doesn’t get any better than that. Little Miss Sunshine despite its very touching scenes remains a sub-par indie movie featuring some wonderful talents in a movie that hasn't much to say. Now if you just wanna feel bad and depressed about these poor people you might love it. As for me, as much as I loved the actors and as much as I was touched by some of the scenes especially those featuring Toni Colette and Steve Carrell or those featuring Olive, I was definitely not in the mood to be fucked with by a fake ass comedy/drama/road movie/musical/family/whatever-else-you-wanna-put-in-there it's-already-lost-all-taste flick. This might be the second most depressing comedy I’ve seen this summer after Adam Sandler’s retarded moralistic film. At least warn us... buttholes!
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