I
did not think this family was weird at all. I support bizarre individuals who
stand firmly by their lifestyles choices. I expect highly developed, strong individual
characters to be portrayed in movies. This family is honestly well-drawn.
Greg
Kinnear (I just saw him as a football coach in Invincible) is Richard Hoover,
a luck-less substitute teacher who has created a 9-step program for success. He's
got mantras for success which has driven his son Dwayne (Paul Dano) into a catatonic
state. Richard is completely clueless about his family. He is an ineffective parent
to Dwayne, who has taken a vow of silence until he achieves his dream to fly fighter
planes, and seven year old daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin), who wants to win
Beauty Contests even though she is merely cute, not Beauty Contest glamorous.
Wife
Sheryl (Toni Collette, who always embodies her characters with truthfulness) is
the family's harried breadwinner and is clearly not an obsessed stage mother.
Alan
Arkin (Grandpa) has the best character and he knows it. Richard's father lives
with them and snorts heroin. He was thrown out of his nursing home for inappropriate
behavior.* Grandpa is helping Olive with her dance routine for her Beauty Contest
entries. I happen to agree with Grandpa's philosophy. When I hit eighty I'm going
to do whatever I want to do, just like Grandpa. My rationale? I'm eighty.
By
the way, I have decided I'm going to "die hard." I don't want to go
out easy in hospice care. I want my grandchildren to boast their grandma died
a hostage in a militant Islamic country or in a Bolivian prison while fighting
with a guard over contraband.
Sheryl's
brother Frank (a somber Steve Carell) is a highly well-respected Proust scholar
who lost out on a MacArthur Genius Grant by a rival who also stole his young boyfriend.
After getting fired, he failed at committing suicide.
When
Olive, by default, is chosen to be a contestant in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant,
the entire family takes the broken-down VW Microbus from New Mexico to California.
I
drove my mother, in an early stage of Alzheimer's, cross-country from New York
to Nevada. I know the pain.
The
Hoover family trip is filled with disasters but once they get to the Pageant we
already know that Olive will be in trouble. She's not JonBenet Ramsey-ready. But
will Little Miss Sunshine have a Rocky (Balboa) ending?
The
ending is priceless and I couldn't stop laughing. The audience cheered. I don't
know how first-time co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris got this movie
made or how they got this cast, but they, and screenwriter Michael Arndt, have
a genuine wonderful movie. I loved the ending. They were true to their characters.
If you liked "Napoleon Dynamite," this is the summer movie to see. It
doesn't have Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson, but it has a lot of humanity.
