XDA

Went to see Little Miss Sunshine with the lovely Beata and liked it a lot with some reservations. First of all, the acting was terrific all around. Second, it was pretty funny. Third it made you feel good about your family in two ways (if you think your family is dysfunctional, the one in the movie--at first--is worse (so you feel better about yours) and at the end you realize one of the most important things in life is having your family support you, so you're ready to jump in when needed). Good message, well presented.

Now the reservations: It was too like an expanded, formulaic TV sitcom (the dying breed variety)--with the crusty, profane, hedonistic grandfather (Alan Arkin), the angst ridden alienated teenage son (no idea), the befuddled near failure of the father (Greg Kinnear being really good), the overwhelmed emotional core but still barely there mom (good looking version Toni Colette) and the pure young daughter for whom the others will literally do anything to aid and protect--like cops. The little girl here, Olive, is also near perfect, as she was in Signs where she was, well, the little girl. Also the plot has some holes in it which defy logic, but are inconsequential. It was written by Michael Arndt, about whom I know nothing. The directors seem to have done nothing before but lots of some sort of music video (do they still make those?) but they get an awful lot right here. Wait, this is supposed to be the reservations part. All the humor arises from pain (like every rose has a thorn or whatever).

The part I liked best was the faygele brother (another TV cliche) played by the ever increasingly impressive Steve Carell. Except for some dark moments in junior high, I have never seriously contemplated suicide and I could never understand people who even tried it not for real. Carell gives me a key hole with which to glimpse the soul of that despair. I wish there was some way that the writer or directors could have showed us whether he really was a good Proust scholar or not. I'm going to assume that he was. He loses his job and apartment and has to live in his silent nephew's room; he loses his pretty (boy) lover to his arch academic rival, who is good looking, drives a nice Jaguar, just won a Macarthur fellow 'genius' grant and has his new Proust book advertised on an entire page of the NYT. If the rival isn't as good a scholar as Carell, even happy go lucky I might despair under those circumstances.

At one point the 'vow of silence' teen Nietzsche fan (another TV cliche) writes a note to Carell, "Welcome to Hell," and at that moment in the messy, crowded, lower middle class ranch house in Albuquerque, it seems appropriate; but the real descent into Hell awaits at Redondo Beach--a beauty pageant for little girls, the Little Miss Sunshine of the title. Jesus, Mary and Joseph is that thing disgusting and the airbrushed, smiley, big haired, dwarf hooker looking little girls are enough to creep John Mark Karr out. They all look like their faces were inflated by bicycle pumps. Oh my God. And they look even worse next to Olive, who has been a pretty homely little girl most of the movie in the god awful mismatched colorful clothing girl gradeschoolers gravitate to and even wear; but with less makeup and more inner warmth and true innocence, she is the prettiest little girl there. Unfortunately, she's no Rick James, bitch.

It is a sad commentary on the pitiful state of American movies that so far, this flawed little film might be the best movie of the year. My kids loved it. I liked it a lot. Oh yea, some of the movie's music was by the weird group DeVotchKa, who opened for Chris Isaak. Even though I had a warning in advance that their music was in the film, I didn't recognize a thing. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes movie music shouldn't actually be recognizable or otherwise stand out.