| RELATIVE MERITS : Dayton & Faris's 'Little Miss Sunshine' [7/10] |
|
|
| Monday, 05 March 2007 | |
|
official synopsis Brazenly satirical and yet deeply human, Little Miss Sunshine introduces audiences to one of the most endearingly fractured families in recent cinema history: the Hoovers, whose trip to a pre-pubescent beauty pageant results not only in comic mayhem but in death, transformation and a moving look at the surprising rewards of being losers in a winning-crazed culture. Father Richard (Greg Kinnear), a hopelessly-optimistic motivational speaker, is desperately attempting to sell his 9-step program for success... without much success. Meanwhile, the Hoovers' "pro-honesty" mother Sheryl (Toni Collette) is constantly harried by her family's eccentric secrets, especially those of her brother (Steve Carell), a gay suicidal Proust scholar fresh out of the hospital after being jilted by his gay lover. Then there are the younger Hoovers with their unlikely dreams - the four-eyed, slightly plump, seven year-old would-be beauty queen Olive (Abigail Breslin) and Dwayne (Paul Dano), an anger-fueled, Nietzsche-reading teen who has taken a staunch vow of silence until he gets into the Air Force Academy. Topping off the family is the grandfather (Alan Arkin), a foul-mouthed pleasure-seeker recently kicked out of his retirement home for snorting heroin. They might not be the picture of perfect mental health, but when a fluke gets Olive invited to compete in the fiercely competitive "Little Miss Sunshine" competition in California, the whole Hoover family rallies behind her. They pile into their rusted-out VW bus and head West on a three-day tragicomic journey filled with madcap surprises and leading up to Olive's big debut - which will change the entire misfit family in ways they could never imagine. review There's an awful lot to like about Little Miss Sunshine. The ensemble is terrific, superbly cast down to the smallest roles (Mary Lynn Rajskub, Geoff Meed, Matt Winston.) Precocious Breslin - actually nine at the time of filming, by such a long way the best thing about Lodge Kerrigan's Keane, finally gets a vehicle (no pun intended) deserving of her talents; Arkin is an ornery hoot; Kinnear and Collette fare at least as well with much their much trickier roles. The picture navigates terrain not a million miles away from Pablo Trapero's Familia Rodante, with a slyly perceptive script by Michael Arndt that makes some droll liberal-lefty points about America's competitive, success-based culture in general, while nimbly skewering the hideous specifics of the child beauty-pageant circuit (a big, soft target if ever there was one.) But (rather like Keane) the picture has been rather bafflingly overrated in many quarters. Arkin's Academy Award seems rather generous considering his - ahem - truncated screen-time. Arndt's Best Original Screenplay win is something else again, given the fact that two of his nominated rivals were the decidedly superior Pan's Labyrinth and The Queen (and that two of 2006's masterpieces, Volver and United 93, could have been nominated but, somehow, weren't.) Even so, it's hard to crab* such an amusing, consistently watchable, breezy affair that - unlike the vast majority of comedies these days - certainly doesn't outstay its welcome. It's also rare to find a picture that gets better as it goes along, builds steadily to a spectacular climax that's hilarious and audacious in roughly equal measure. And the best thing about this ending (which for obvious won't be described in detail here) is that we don't see it coming - only in retrospect do we realise how skilfully the directors and writer have kept their trump card so craftily concealed. Neil Young 4th March, 2007 LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE : [7/10] : USA 2006 : Jonathan DAYTON & Valerie FARIS : 98 mins (BBFC timing of DVD) seen on DVD at home in Sunderland (UK), 2nd March 2007 * Joanne Laurier has an even-handed go; Michael Sicinski succeeds; Mike d'Angelo bailed... |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
