"Little Miss Sunshine" Don't Let This Movie Deceive You

 

    Wow, just wow. That's all I have to say to this film. For context, I was under the impression that I'd be watching some bright, cheery little film about the power of family and the human spirit as they embark on a road trip. I literally only put this movie on a list because I saw someone put this movie on a list of "feel-good movies." I mean how can you blame me, it looks like one of those films, from the bright yellow bus, to the hopeful Sufjan Stevens it starts out with, you don't really expect this film to get weird, but it does. And I don't hate it for that, but by the end my mouth was just agape at the twists and turns it took to get there. I mean this movie is called Little Miss Sunshine, you'd think it'd be a little happier too. Let's talk about it.

    Don't get me wrong, I don't think the film is bad, but it's just nothing like I expected. First of all, I should have known something was wrong with this film when the rating popped up on my screen. This movie is rated R, and I'm about 60% sure it was just because of all of the swearing in it. Pretty much every character outside of Olive liberally uses the word fuck at least once, and honestly it's kind of refreshing. After all this is the sort of language you'd be expecting from a highly dysfunctional family like theirs. Maybe grandpa Hoover doing drugs also contributed to it, but I'm not too familiar with ratings on movies and felt this movie was probably closer to like PG-13 to be honest.

    Another aspect of the film that threw me off was that this film was plot-driven rather than character-driven. Usually for films like this where it involves a cast of people bouncing around you'd expect it to be about the characters changing as they embark on their journey. But nope. Maybe the only one who really changes is Dwayne, who breaks his own vow of silence. Frank hasn't really figured anything out except to feel better about himself and to stop caring about Proust, Richard does the bare minimum of being disgusted at the beauty pageant, and well Grandpa dies before he undergoes anything different. None of the characters really actually figure out anything about how they're going to fix their lives. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's basically how the movie keeps you on your toes the entire time. This film is about the movie throwing all of these wrenches and surprises to keep you guessing what happens next.

    And it works! From the car almost immediately breaking down leading to their very novel idea of pushing the van to start it (which I thought would have become some metaphor for the family needing to work together but never particularly changes), to grandpa dying immediately after delivering a very touching and important speech to Olive, to them literally escaping with his dead body from (a very small and tiny) hospital, to well the ending, I never knew what was going to happen, and you sort of appreciate it. You do appreciate a film that keeps you on your toes pretty much the entire time, even if it means making you uncomfortable for the last twenty minutes of the film.

    Ok let me finally address this ending. About halfway through this film I was searching up this genre because I was confused at what it was supposed to be, only to find out there was a supposed "controversy" around this film. Turns out it was just people who didn't understand (semi-reasonably) the very jarring ending to this film. Basically, the film ends on this pretty hilarious reveal that the beauty pageant that the family fought tooth and nail to make, their ultimate goal, is just another beauty pageant. Which is to say beauty pageants are easily one of the creepiest parts of American culture that is for some reason still acceptable. My mouth was agape and I was just so deeply uncomfortable for the entire ending of this film they really hammer it home man. Whether it be the literal pervert who sits next to Richard, to the people spray tanning seven year old's in the change room, to the emcee who personally looks at every child while singing a line about how much he loves America or something. The film lays it on very thick that you're supposed to be weirded out the entire time watching this film. Like Dwayne and Frank literally last less than 10 seconds because of how weird, gross and creepy it is.

    Then, Olive finally comes on and the big reveal and Grandpa has been making her do some ridiculous dance to Super Freak by Rick James. Some people complained that it undercuts him as an important counter-weight to Richard who spends most of this film putting Olive down in the name of "success," but I'd argue it's quite in line with what he does the entire film. First of all, he's not sexualizing Olive, this dance might be considered sexual if it was an adult woman doing it, but it's basically a seven year old going through a regular dance routine half-clumsily. Her outfit isn't as bad as the swimsuit section at the beginning of this pageant. To me it read more like grandpa very clearly (as seen by the song choice) taking the piss out of what is very clearly meant to be a critique of just how oddly sexual and creepy beauty pageants are in general. Like I don't know ho else you're supposed to read that scene, especially when people get mad at Olive, for making people uncomfortable, when they should have been uncomfortable the entire time anyways, so the family dances with her in solidarity.

Final Score: 80/100

    On a random side note I'm going to assume it's intentional but this movie is oddly Breaking Bad-esque. What I mean by that is that the main characters literally live in Albuquerque and both Bryan Cranston and Dean Norris show up, which was a pretty funny connection for me to make. Also I don't know if this is controversial but if I had to rank the members of the family it'd be Olive (literal child), Sheryl (good mother), Dwayne (fair crashout to be honest), Frank (Kind of sucky but he gets out of the depressed gimmick pretty quickly), Grandpa (he knows when to tone it down for the kids) and then Richard is last for me by a decent margin. I don't know how you're worse than the irresponsible Grandpa that does drugs but Richard basically made the 9-step process his entire life, and revolved everything around that worldview. The movie does a good job of illustrating that everyone basically indulges him but he's basically like in the same tier of the worst people you'll ever meet. From explaining his plan to his own children, to telling his daughter not to eat ice cream and fat-shaming her, he's lucky that he very quickly realized that beauty pageants are terrible and supported his daughter (the bare minimum btw), because otherwise I would have complained about him all review long. Either way the film is surprisingly good, and I really had little to complain about it. I was just genuinely shocked for like a good 30- 40% of it, and that's impressive.