Review #1541: Little Miss Sunshine.
Cast:
Greg Kinnear (Richard Hoover), Steve Carell (Frank Ginsberg), Toni Collette (Sheryl Hoover), Paul Dano (Dwayne Hoover), Abigail Breslin (Olive Hoover), Alan Arkin (Edwin Hoover), Bryan Cranston (Stan Grossman), Beth Grant (Pageant Official Jenkins), Wallace Langham (Kirby), Matt Winston (Pageant MC), Julio Oscar Mechoso (Mechanic), and Dean Norris (State Trooper McCleary) Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.
Review:
"We felt it was important not to put window dressing between the audience and the characters. We love style but there's a place for that, and sometimes you want the picture to be transparent, for the characters to come through and feel connected and not removed"
"Or distant. What interested us was making a film that was all about the performances. Just the people on that screen."
There have been quite a few film debuts featured before, but how many have their directors and writer debut in the same film? California-born Dayton and Faris both attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with differing interest (film school for Dayton, dance with Faris). Both met in 1978 when he filed a few of her performances. Dayton and Faris soon found opportunities to direct music videos together (alongside other things like commercials) with bands such as R.E.M. and The Smashing Pumpkins starting in 1982, with their work receiving notice such as two Grammy Award wins. They were offered opportunities to direct films with The Mod Squad (1999) and Bad Boys II (2003) that were presented as "style-driven" but they declined (while stating that this film has a "restrained" style, with mood driving the visuals). To put it in perspective the challenge that results from first-time directors/writers trying to get their vision done, this film took nearly six years to go from an initial script by Arndt (who had worked as a script reader and assistant to Matthew Broderick before deciding to take up writing) written in May 2000 to years of shopping around production companies like Focus Features before Marc Turtletaub decided to fund the film himself (at $8 million) to be done in the span of 30 days in 2005, which would include a re-written ending weeks before release the following year.
What we have is a film made about on the fringe of a winning-obsessed culture with a couple of misfits. Not losers mind you (because loser people would just abandon others, whether family or friend), but people who undergo change in ways they couldn't imagine for themselves on a worthwhile and bitingly amusing journey, which makes for a worthy road movie that ultimately is a meaningful winner that lands a majority of its punches in misery over time. It packs itself with a cast that seems to have spent their time before filming in getting a feel for their characters as a family that lesser actors would've just made seem like clichés but are instead malleable enough for turning well-done comedy and drama. Kinnear is particularly adept at heading the film with a tremendous performance, wrapped in Type-A desperation that exemplifies a devastatingly amusing look upon the drive to be thought of as a winner at all costs in all of its pathetic turns (such as point blank talking about eating ice cream will gradually make you fat to your kid). Carell proves just as well in providing a well-wrapped sense of depression and sharp sense of irony that makes a terrific little act when paired with Dano, who has the interesting task of spending half the film in a vow of silence (which naturally makes for one great scene in the second half). Collette holds the film together as the wavering center in pragmatic conviction that shares just the right sense of calm weariness to make a dynamic performance with her own moments to contribute. Arkin does well with what he is given in the habits of a spontaneous old man with a few amusing moments in choice words that generally hit the mark (Academy Award worthy is up to your perception, however). Breslin delivers a well-spun performance filled with sunny charm and brave temperament that makes for the favorite to watch hold her own amongst the older actors in this misfit group. Cranston and others do fine in small moments, such as his turn in elevated arrogance to selling motivational speaking. The film moves at 102 minutes with level-headed patience towards pathos and its road along to a pageant that might as well be a representation of life being like a pageant in who falls in and out of the margins of what we call success and what matters most with family. Naturally it results in a biting and fairly outrageous way to close its setup that makes the hallmarks of a worthy satire that will make one wince just as much as chuckle with good reason and clarity that make a worthy film for those in the mindset for a film like this.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
