I feel guilty about having seen Little Miss Sunshine on a bootleg DVD (which I didn't buy, incidentally). It was a movie that richly deserved my money, although given that its run was exclusively limited to Ayala Cinemas, it wasn't exactly easy for me to find time to watch it.
Still, after having watched something as wretched as Ghost Rider it is truly refreshing to watch a a light-hearted, well-written film that embodies the art form as well as Sideways did two years ago. While I certainly applaud the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' decision to award The Departed (a movie I wanted and still want to see) with the best picture statue (and its director, Martin Scorsese with his first, looooong overdue Oscar), this movie richly deserved to be part of that derby.
It's essentially the odyssey of a family that travels cross-country so that their little girl (the irrepressibly plucky Abigail Breslin) can compete in the titular Little Miss Sunshine pageant. A stranger bunch of characters you will not find: a gay, suicidal uncle (Steve Carrell), a drug-snorting, foul-mouthed grandfather (for which Alan Arkin just won an Oscar), a teenaged big brother who's under a vow of silence (Paul Dano), and the "normal" ones, a husband (Greg Kinnear) and a wife (Toni Colette) who are basically betting their bottom dollar on the husband's ability to sell a self-help seminar. Oh, and of course there's the daughter (Breslin). I would be remiss if I didn't mention one of the film's most memorable characters: an old, beat up, yellow VW Bus.
This is simply a superb movie from start to finish. The actors are pitch-perfect, the script is on a par with Sideways and has the distinction of being an original work as opposed to the Alexander Payne's adaptation of a novel. It has all the quirkiness of a Charlie Kaufman film without the metafictional or surreal qualities to it.
And God, it is funny. From start to finish. It is just perfect in its mixture of humor and heartbreak. Films like that truly hit home with me.
And heartbreak is what this film is all about; that, and family. But the element of disappointment, of life's many letdowns, is what I suspect rings true with just about everyone who really enjoyed this film.
It's lovely how Steve Carell's character Frank captures this theme towards the last third of his movie by sharing the experience of French writer Proust; his suffering and disappointments were what truly helped form his character, much more than the moments of happiness in life.
The movie tells us how we should run towards what we want even though potential disappointment awaits us, because it is our efforts, even the ones--maybe even especially the ones--that end in failure, that define us in the end.
I haven't said this in a long time, but it's a good time now: watch this movie. However you get your hands on it, watch it, and be moved by it.
No comments:
Post a Comment