Little Miss Sunshine Release Date: July 26, 2006 Starring: Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin Directed by: Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton
The debut feature by codirectors and music-video vets Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (from a script by Michael Arndt) took pride of place in the unofficial "Movie That People Were Actually Entertained By" competition at this year's Sundance Film Festival. I've got a theory about Sundance movies of this ilk that I've aired before, modeled on a literal inversion of In the Bedroom, and even if you're not familiar with this theory, if you follow the festival action from year to year you'll know what I'm talking about. I had to miss Sundance this year, so I'm just catching up with Sunshine, which one of its few Sundance naysayers described to me as National Lampoon's Vacation for people who think they're too smart for National Lampoon's Vacation. Which sounded a bit harsh, but as it happens, the person meant it literally, as the movie, um, borrows a major plot point from the Lampoon picture in such a way that if it doesn't totally tick off John Hughes, it might please him that he's still inspiring screenwriters.
That said, Sunshine's tale of a most messed-up family's road trip to a little-girl beauty pageant is well-paced (particularly after the opening scenes, wherein Dayton and Faris clear their throat by indulging in some music-video visual tics), and despite the predictability of many of its gags (as soon as the clan pulls off in a VW minibus you just know that the auto repair joint they're gonna end up at won't have the right part—it's a VW minibus for God's sake!), Sunshine is diverting and often funny enough, largely thanks (as is not unusual in cases like this) to its cast, with Greg Kinnear as the would-be Tony Robbins dad, Toni Collette doing the least boring portrayal of a put-upon mom ever, Alan Arkin as a remarkably skeevy grandpa, and Abigail Breslin as the hopeful little miss. Special mention is due Paul Dano as a spectacularly alienated teen and Steve Carell as his perhaps even more alienated uncle. How more alienated? How does suicidal gay American Proust scholar sound to you? And Carell more than sells it all, even the Proust stuff.
—GlennKenny
Copyright © 2008 Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc.