DVD Review: Little Miss Sunshine

DVD Reviews

By Jeff Swindoll Dec 21, 2006, 14:01 GMT

Who knew that a movie about a dysfunctional family’s journey to a children’s beauty pageant would end up being one of the funniest movies of the year? Little Miss Sunshine is a jewel and will hopefully garner a bevy of Oscar nods.

Little Miss Sunshine is a jewel and will hopefully garner a bevy of Oscar nods.Somebody has dropped out of the Little Miss Sunshine pageant and that means that Olive (Abigail Breslin) has been included because she was the next in line. She’s elated but it means that her family has to make the cross country trek to California so that she can enter the contest. Oh boy, what a family they are! Dad Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a self-help guru who is attempting to get his “nine step” program published, but the program probably isn’t worth the paper that it’s written on since he is such a failure. Mom Sheryl (Toni Collette) seems to be the more stable parent, but is coming to the end of her rope with Richard’s inability to provide for the family. She is having to watch her brother Frank (Steve Carrell) because he’s recently attempted suicide over a failed romance with one of his grad students….a male grad student.

This dysfunctional family takes a cross country trek

Did I mention that he’s the United States’ most renowned Proust scholar? Olive’s brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) has taken a vow of silence until he can get into flight school and hasn’t spoken a word for nine months. Richard’s father Edwin (Alan Arkin) lives with the family since he was kicked out of Shady Rest Nursing Home for snorting heroin! He wants you kids to know that it’s okay for him since he’s old, but you youngsters should stay away from the drugs. The family is forced into this road trip because Sheryl’s sister can’t take Olive to Little Miss Sunshine. So they pile into the family’s VW van and head cross country, California here we come. The van only gets worse when it has troubles and can’t shift into first or second. The only solution is to park on a hill or have the whole family push the thing to a running start. Along the way they learn something about themselves and how to be a family again. It doesn’t really sound like a laugh-fest, but Little Miss Sunshine delivers. It may not be a gut-buster but it delivers a grin again and again. Thought I did bust a gut when Olive got to the talent portion of the pageant. She and Grandpa have been practicing her performance in secret and it is a hoot. The cast is spot on and one hopes that some Oscars might find their way into the hands of some of them. Alan Arkin is hilarious as the doped up granddad and performs his role with cantankerous gusto (I’ve still got Nazi bullets in my ass!). Greg Kinnear is also excellent as the patriarch of this messed up family. He’s a supposed motivational speaker type and you would imagine that his family would follow his “nine step” plan and be the most well adjusted on the block. Wrong! You begin to see why his proposed book is having trouble selling (I imagine that all of those motivational, Dr. Phil types have truly screwed up lives behind the scenes like our Richard). Toni Collette is the other side of the parental coin and plays the role of the frustrated, fed-up wife to perfection.

Abigail Breslin is the best part of the show

Paul Dano plays his role in silence for a lot of the movie but still manages to prove what a wonderful actor that he is. Steve Carrell turns in a performance that proves that not only is he the funnyman but that he can also act. He infuses his role not only with comedy but with just the right amount of pathos. I’ve saved the best for last. Abigail Breslin is just fantastic. She’s the one that I hope gets nominated for the Oscar since her performance is excellent. Excellent all around and not a miscast or poorly performed bit in the bunch. The show also skewers these deranged child pageants and they’re in much need of skewering. Little Miss Sunshine is a flipper disc with a fullscreen version on one side and an anamorphic widescreen (2.40:1) enhanced for 16x9 televisions version on the other. Special features include two commentaries. One with co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris solo (well, a duo) and the other with screenwriter Michael Arndt joining them. The widescreen side features 4 alternate endings which total about five minutes and have an optional commentary by Faris and Dayton (the commentary is forced over ending one). The fullscreen side has the “Till the End of Time” music video (performed by Devotchka), a soundtrack spot, and three other Fox trailers (Sideways, Garden State, and the Illusionist, but no Little Miss Sunshine). Little Miss Sunshine is a jewel and will hopefully garner a bevy of Oscar nods (if it does I expect another DVD dip with more special features). Abigail Breslin definitely deserves at least a nomination. Heck, the whole cast deserves at least the nod. It is one of the funnier pictures of the year and one that I greatly enjoyed. Did I happen to mention that Frank is one of the most renowned Proust scholars in the US?