A Look Back: Little Miss Sunshine

“Everyone, just pretend to be normal.”

That’s the order given to the Hoover clan in “Little Miss Sunshine,” when their VW bus is pulled over en route to a kid’s beauty pageant (long story), and from what we have already seen of these people, we know it will be a tall order, to put it mildly. The head of the clan, Greg Kinnear, is a totally unsuccessful motivational speaker who divides the world into winners and losers, or as Dave Barry once put it, takes his philosophy of life from Nike commercials. His more-grounded-but-not-by-a-lot wife is played by Toni Collette, hauling one of her patented world-weary mom indie film roles out of the bag. Toni’s grown brother, played by Steve Carell, has just returned to crash with them when the movie begins and is despondent because his boyfriend has dumped him for the second most eminent Proust scholar in the country (Steve being the first, a point he is very proud of). The reason for this journey in the first place is their young daughter (Abigail Breslin) who has managed to qualify for a beauty pageant. “Managed” is relevant because Abigail, although bright and spunky, is not the kind of classically photogenic child one might think would compete in one, but this plot hole is solved by having had relatives help her qualify for the first round. (One imagines that Toni would not be much help in prepping her child for a pageant in the first place – she has too much to deal with already on her plate.)

There’s also Abigail’s morose older brother (Paul Dano) who is going through a phase where he hates everyone (and perhaps himself, as well) which is not atypical of a teenager but with the added twist that he has taken a vow of silence, inspired by Nietzsche, and only communicates via pad and pen. Rounding out the cast is Abigail’s grandfather (Alan Arkin) who has been ejected from his retirement community for the kinds of shenanigans that only elderly people in R-rated movies engage in (drug use and sexual escapades) and who is now living with the Hoovers and helping Abigail prepare for her big event. Eventually, the entire family decides to accompany Abigail on the cross-country trip, which like all movie trips, is ill-fated in that their bus will display unreliability, one character will discover in a very cruel way that he is not destined to become a pilot, and another character will expire. It all culminates in perhaps the most inappropriate talent segment for child pageants in movie history.

If “Little Miss Sunshine” was a TV movie, it would likely go the cliché route of having Abigail’s father realize that the world is more complex, but because it’s an indie, we’re spared that. “Little Miss Sunshine,” however, is bested in overall poor taste by another beauty pageant movie “Drop Dead Gorgeous,” in which a rival is actually electrocuted and another character loses her hand. Neither cast is remotely “normal,” but at least in “Little Miss Sunshine,” we’re able to laugh with, not at, this unique group and be glad we accompanied them on their journey.