Little Miss Sunshine

'The Little Train that Shouldn't'

Early last year, in a little place known as Colorado at a small festival called Sundance, a bunch of unheard of films were shown featuring the work of undeveloped talent in what is normally considered an elitist FU to corporate Hollywood by exploring experimental structures and forms in film. Corporate Hollywood felt bad for ignoring the small little guys all the time, so it decided to save money this year on expensive big-budget films and instead help out the little guy. Many of these little guys sold their wares to the now nice Hollywood. In fact, this had been the case for years. From these transactions, a new star was born in 2006, Little Miss Sunshine. The movie built up a lot of buzz for being the film that sold for the most at the festival and for featuring such a great cast including Steve Carell, Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, and Toni Collette. After it was put into wide release, the film garnered all sorts of critical praise for its dark comedic style and its acting and story. This praise was not unfounded as it was also a very good commercial success, proving to be one of the breakthough movies of the season. Now, after it has already been released on DVD, it is being nominated for various awards, including an Oscar and just won the SAG award for best ensemble. It is obvious, that if nothing else, the director duo of Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris is here to stay. They have made it over the mountain of indistinguishability to the land of Counterpayne, or Neverland, or California.

They shouldn't.

Having now seen the aforementioned film, I can sing praise for the two for creating a cheap Hollywood film. When I write cheap, I mean literally. The film is much cheaper than a normal Hollywood production. The diss comes in the fact that it is a Hollywood film. The story is simply another look at a common theme among Hollywood films, especially nowadays with television. A dysfunctional family struggles to survive each other. They decide to take a road trip to place their daughter in a beauty contest in California. Terrible events occur and tension mounts into a giant laughable catharsis with the dysfunctional family bonding together and giving a sendup to the well-to-do and rich snobby debutantes of California (and the world!). For a film with such hype and praise, the film disappointed me sadly. The independent feel of the movie doesn't exist, well it does, but it is overruled by the obvious metaphors and symbols and attempts at making a commercial film. The end, while funny, is the only laugh out loud section of the film while the rest is just chuckles and even then, the end works because of the absolute brilliantness of Abigail Breslin and her commitment to her character. Of course, the end event is still a bit overused...yes I know...gripe gripe gripe.

Anyway, when it comes to writing, needless to say, I feel the movie is a decent rehash of other Hollywood films and ideas that have come before it and doesn't offer much. As for directing, I am slightly better off. The film is directed by an unseen hand and at no point does it feel forced. This is an extremely difficult task given the bizarre story and highly unusual for an independent film. The only possible obvious indicator of the directing is the role of Fate in the film. At time, certain events occur and you wonder if it was the directors getting bored and wanting something to spice it up, although I think that is more of the writer's mistake. Despite the nice surety of hand displayed by the duo, the characters don't seem to gel as tightly as necessary to make me believe that they truly care about each other. The closest it ever gets is when Toni Collette breaks down in the hospital. This is also an actor gripe I have for the film. The fact that the two best actors in the film are Alan Arkin and Abigail Breslin, the youngest and oldest respectively, it should give a better idea as to why most of the film simply isn't as interesting. Not only are experimental ideas discouraged in the film, but the directors can barely make a passable family relationship in a Hollywood style. I realize its a new directorial effort, and its not a bad start, but it is not worthy of all the attention.

Next, of course are the actors. As already stated, the two best actors are the youngest and oldest, both of whom have been nominated for an Oscar in their respective categories. While it's nice to see Alan Arkin being nominated, he doesn't deserve it. Well, yes he does a pretty good job as the raunchy mean-spirited but loving drug addict grandfather, but honestly he isn't on screen long enough to deserve the award. This is more a gripe with the Academy whom have a penchant for nominating and at times awarding Oscars to actors who have hardly any time on screen. Judy Dench in Shakespeare in Love pops into mind. Abigail, on the other hand, completely deserves the nod she received. I have not seen such daring childhood acting in a long time. The last scene of the film shows what this little girl can do. She can make a stripping routine seem like a fun respectable performance dance. Maybe its just the fact that she is ridiculously cute. She is! Either way, she does a great job. Then there is Steve Carell. Carell is the new funny man of Hollywood and the fact that he did this film after 40-Year Old Virgin speaks volumes of his character. Carell has proven that he knows how to play a part on the fine line of subtleness and absurdity, and he does so once again. The difference is that this character is so real, that it is hard to laugh. This is actually a good thing as it is refreshing seeing him do something different. It also helps to bring the family and its troubles back to earth. I sensed the possibility of a family the most from him. Unfortunately, it could be argued that he played his character slightly too laid back since many of his jokes come across as mere chuckles instead of the full on laughs as expected by many. Then there is Paul Dano and Toni Collette. Dano does a decent job with the mute character he is given. The real problem is that he seems to hate his family a bit too much so that I can't buy it when later he decides to come back and join them when pleaded to by Abigail's character. He is also kind of unlikable in how smug and mean he is with his retarded notions of Nietzche. Collette is well, for the most part, unreadable. She is the mother, yet she works best in the film for crying or yelling at Greg Kinnear. Other than that, she seems too beat down to be an effective parent of any sort and therefore floats in the background for most of the film. As for Greg Kinnear, he is fairly disappointing for most of the film, playing the typical "I'm an annoying screw-up dad" for most of the film. He only becomes interesting once he recognizes his mistakes and vows to fix them by riding away in the middle of the night to make his stand at holding the crumbling family together. Yet, he gives up too soon and an entire scene of confrontation is wasted. His discovery of character and his decision to become something more pops up again later, but he never seems to truly recover from his "famous lecturerer" ideals until he the last huge scene, and at that point you're laughing to hard to care. It's a typical role for him played with a few twists and it doesn't come out feeling earned. All in all, the cast does okay but as mentioned earlier, fail to gel together to create the sense of family that is 100% necessary for a film of this nature.

Conclusion:
The film has decent direction, some truly amusing momemnts, and one hilarious ending. But the failure of the story to be anything besides run-of-the-mill and film to be daring turns the film into a cheap Hollywood film. The inability of the cast to gel together as an effective family, while partially the point, makes the love and relationships between characters seem tenuous at best. It's a good film, but not Sundance praise worthy, nor worth the amount of money it has garnered off that praise and it's casts acting credits, and especially not worth an Oscar much less a SAG award. I bet that if you watch the movie without having heard any of the ridiculous hype, you will come away with a much better impression than I did. My hope though, is that this year's Sundance produces a more interesting take and film. Oh, and good luck to the duo at topping this film's success with their next.
2.4 out of 5

Wannabe