Little Miss Sunshine DVD Review

"Little Miss Sunshine" reviews

DVD

Little Miss Sunshine

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2007-01-18 16:00:33

Provider

DVD Review

This well scripted, off-kilter tale of a screwed-up family and their cross-country journey to a child beauty pageant is a hilarious and poignant movie.

No one is normal, everyone is exceptional, and what an exceptional bunch these are! Mum, Sheryl (Toni Collette) is supporting the family finances and serving chicken in a bucket for dinner (again) to: Dad, Richard (Greg Kinnear), a failing motivational speaker; Grandfather (Alan Arkin), a coke and heroin taking, foul-mouthed, sex-fuelled rebel; Dwayne (Paul Dano), a raging Nietzsche-reading teen who’s taken a vow of silence; and Olive (Abigail Breslin) a cute, but plump, down to earth 7-year-old who dreams of beauty queen glory. Oh and Sheryl’s just picked up her brother Frank (Steve Carell) from the hospital following his suicide attempt brought on by losing his job and home when he was spurned by his gay student lover.

When, by a stroke of luck, Olive gets the chance to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in California, the family sets out in their beat-up VW van. The result is an outstanding tale mixing equal parts tragedy and comedy.

The cast is great and the script’s better. It’s the best bits of Alexander ‘Sideways’ Payne’s career and all the funniest American indie films you’ve seen, or ever meant to, in one place.

Disc also features commentary with directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and writer Michael Arndt plus four alternate endings with optional commentary.