Film Review

09 January 2009 02:59 BST

Little Miss Sunshine

Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, out now, starring Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, 102 minutes .

In a Nutshell…

Sunny. Farcical. Ridiculous. Satirical. Roadtrip.

What's it all about?

It's about Olive, really. The little girl who wants to be a national beauty queen and gets the chance to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine contest when the winner of her region gets disqualified for using diet pills. She's seven by the way. Circumstances then conspire to make her entire extended family drive halfway across America to the far reaches of California to make this little girl's dreams come true. Although a less likely beauty queen you are unlikely to meet.

What follows is series of disasters that inevitably lead to California in the nick of time, before general enlightenment ensues all round.

Who's in it?

There's Abigail Breslin as Olive. Greg Kinnear as the dad who runs less-than-successful self-help courses and tells his daughter not to eat ice cream because it might make her fat. Paul Dano as the moody teenage son who worships Friedrich Nietzsche, wears 'Jesus was wrong' T-shirts and has taken a self-imposed vow of silence. Steve Carell arguably stars as suicidal brother Frank, the former academic luminary who "fell in love with a boy" and it all went wrong. Alan Arkin is the drug-addict Grandpa who has "still got Nazi bullets in my ass". And finally Toni Collette, as the mother who tries to hold it all together as mothers are supposed to and sees the good in each member of her oddball family.

As an example

Dad to Olive: "There is no sense in entering a contest if you don't think you're going to win. Do you think you can win Little Miss Sunshine?"

Olive: "Yes."

Dad: "We're going to California."

Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars

More than likely. It's the kind of film – of the Lost in Translation ilk – that normally critics love to get excited about. It's not a big budget, big noise, big cast film, which also tends to help a film do well at the awards. However, there are no really stand-out performances, so it is hard to see any of the actors being showered with praise for their efforts.

What the others say

"Little Miss Sunshine is a genial and breezy film, with a neatly engineered dramatic twist - yet the satiric intent is weirdly uncertain." – The Guardian

"Charming, funny and wonderfully acted: this delight of independent cinema will make you want to pick up the phone and call your own dysfunctional family just to tell them you love them." – Channel 4

"Little Miss Sunshine turns somewhat conventional when it finally gets to the pageant - the world of prematurely sexualized JonBenets [Ramsey, the beauty pageant queen killed in Colorado in 1996] virtually defies parody - but getting there is a lot of fun." – New York Post.

So is it any good?

Dependent on what mood you go into the cinema it can either be a superbly crafted satirical movie which perfectly captures the state of American society…or a ridiculous take on the traditional American roadtrip movie with calamitous event after calamitous event, complete with motels, gas stations and vehicle problems. Personally, the film fell into the latter camp, but judging by the uproarious laughter from my fellow cinemagoers and the universally favourable critical response that may be the minority view.

It just isn't that funny. The jokes are predictable and bordering on the ridiculous – dead Grandpa Drug Addict's body being taken in the trunk of the bus for instance – and the characterisation seems more about ticking boxes than developing the plot. Have we got a depressive teenage son? Check. How about a deliriously happy little girl? With big milkbottle glasses? Got her too? Great.

Admittedly the film as been put together with the lowest of low budgets and there are a couple of good performances, but it just doesn't do what it set out to. Sure, it pokes fun at the world of junior beauty pageants and self-help courses, but those are not exactly difficult targets at which to aim. There are some amusing moments, but on the whole they are few and far between and the plot doesn't really seem to know what its message is. Is it about the coming together of families, or the blowing apart of stereotypes? Either way, it's a reasonably enjoyable hour and a half, but not the classic that some would have you believe.

6/10

Martin Ashplant

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