UPDATE: This post won an award. A small one, but still an award. DETAILS.
The Oscar race is heating up, and I have to push for Little Miss Sunshine. Why? Primarily because this could have been an awful movie. The script has very treacle content that could easily turn into emotionally overblown performances. Not that the writing is bad, but there is a high degree of sentimentality, requiring great skill of the directors and actors to avoid melodramatic pitfalls. Fortunately, the ensemble is blessed with gifted actors who can dance between the comedic and dramatic with enviable ease and directors who know how to showcase their actors.
This is the story of a family and the challenges to its unity. Make no mistake, this is a comedy (and an extremely funny one) but serious issues abound: family dissolution, suicide, lost love, bankruptcy, and exploitation. The joy of the movie for me was the continuing escape from the ever present threat of total family ruin. The family faces one crisis after another, yet as an audience, we're given the gift of invested detachment in the action as one thing after another goes wrong for the beautifully hapless family. We're given the ability to live that familiar crisis response trope of "one day we'll look back on this and laugh" from a safe distance. The action moves smoothly and the movie moves fluidly through its plot. The actors invest so much commitment and life to their characters that they're lovable even when life brings out the worst in them. We've known and faced the disappointments that the characters experience, and its refreshing to see their hilarious lack of a smooth, gracious response to life's problems. Family implosion under stress seen through honesty and humor is one of the many strengths of this movie.
The previously-mentioned strengths (sweet but not overly sentimental story, powerful cast, equal parts hilarity and gravity, smart directors) are enough to make this film an oscar-worthy jewel. However, the wonderfully funny satire of the Little Miss Sunshine Pageant is what catapults this movie to an elite place for me. The subtle commentary on perceptions of beauty and its disturbing influences is realized so well that I still hurt from laughing at it on my third viewing. This is a beautiful little movie of the highest quality. I hope it's rewarded as such.
3 comments:
Part of the reason the movie was slagged is because to a significant portion of our world, this movie is completely unbelievable. To that statement, I counter (warning: spolier alert).
As a pre-pubsecent child, I was left in a gas station bathroom in the middle of the Arizona desert in a road trip from New Mexico to California. I too have had to push start a Mazda 808 with a bum clutch through a border patrol station. And finally, I too wanted to go to the Academy, only to discover my vision sucked (however, in my case, it was the military who discovered the proble, not my well-meaning uncle).
The point is, I agree 100% with your comments. Brilliant movie.
Damn! Your folks gave you the Olive treatment? I never knew that, dood. You've turned out extremely well despite this injustice. The worst that happened to me in terms of parental abandonment was being left in Smith's grocery store for 30 minutes when my mom loaded up the groceries (but not me) into the Toyota Land Cruiser and when my parents forgot my 16th birthday because they planned a trip to Hawaii without me in early November 1988. The first instance wasn't bad because I just stayed in the arcade playing Asteroids for 30 extra minutes and the second instance I've been using for guilt leverage for almost 20 years.
Thank you for the excellent counter to those who cannot accept the reality stretch from this movie. Personal experience is a powerful tool for persuasion. You've got some of the best stories ever.
That was harsh about your birthday, although I really should remember that incident. However, I think I fondly recall that week. Perhaps it was their way of giving you a gift?
With respect to Little Miss Sunshine, I go to movies to be entertained, to help laugh at my own life. If I wanted it to be realistic, I'd just go to work instead. It would at least be cheaper.
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