Little Miss Sunshine

Little Miss Sunshine will definitely capture your heart. It is a hilarious and often heartfelt tale about a family torn apart by a overwhelming drive for success. However, several lessons learned along the way bring the family closer together.

The family is your typical American, dysfunctional family, reminiscent of the family in the Squid in the Whale and Napolean Dynamite. Every member has his or her quirks: the father is trying to make it big as a motivational speaker, the grandfather is a brutally honest heroine addict, the uncle is a gay, suicidal genius, the mother is trapped in a KFC dinner cycle, the son has sworn silence until he becomes a pilot, and the daughter is obsessed with winning her beauty pageant.

A phone call forces the family on a road trip from Albequerque to LA. They have 2 days to arrive in LA for a beauty pageant. Several hilarious bumps along the way bring the family closer together. I will not give away any of the details, but you will be laughing out loud. In the end, the daughter gives a very "unique" performance. This allows the family to realize that, despite their own failures and flaws, everything is ok. The world will push you around, it will bring you down, it will tell you you're not good enough, but as long as you have people to love and people who love you than maybe things aren't so bad.

Not only is the story excellent, the acting is superb. Steve Carrell does an awesome job as the uncle, Greg Kinnear plays a very convincing dad, and Abigail Breslin steals the show as the daughter.

Although some of the scenes are a bit disturbing, especially those of the beauty pageant, I still thoroughly enjoyed this film. I give it 3 and 1/2 stars.
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