Movies |
Little Miss Sunshine
By
Published: Jul 02, 2023
Category:
Comedy
Alan Arkin died. The Times obituary chronicles a long career, with many beloved movies and television shows. I’m focusing on “Little Miss Sunshine,” which won him a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his hugely entertaining performance as a crusty, addicted grandfather. It’s also a good time to suggest this particular movie. As Arkin said in his acceptance speech, “More than anything I am deeply moved by the open-hearted appreciation our small film has received, which in these fragmented times speaks so openly of the possibility of innocence, growth and connection.” This has been a season of cynicism, contraction and division. Consider this 2006 film a brief antidote….
The dad (Greg Kinnear) is a relentlessly upbeat motivational speaker who is unable to find a publisher.
His wife (Toni Collette) is so harried she’s misplaced her femininity and has become the family enabler.
Their teenage son (Paul Dano) looks like a Columbine killer-in-waiting; he reads Nietzsche, hates everyone in his family, and has taken a vow of silence.
Their 7-year-old daughter (Abigail Breslin) obsessively watches televised beauty pageants and dreams of winning a kid contest, although she wears huge eyeglasses and is as round as a Weeble.
The wife’s brother (Steve Carell) has been recently displaced as America’s #1 Proust scholar by his ex-boyfriend’s new lover. He’s botched a suicide attempt and has come to live in the only home that will have him.
And just to round out this clan of freaks, there’s Kinnear’s father (Alan Arkin), a grizzled codger who swears like a sailor, snorts heroin and is the talent coordinator for his granddaughter.
The plot is pure “independent film.” The kid gets invited to a California beauty pageant 700 miles away, and the family piles into an old VW minibus in a mad dash to get there. Along the way, Things Happen — including the malfunctioning of the VW clutch. (Get it? In the clutch, they have no clutch.) Problems surface that can’t be ignored. Watch the trailer.
These are not Hollywood caricatures. That’s the point. The whole point. Really, you could think you’re watching a brilliantly-dubbed French movie — complex emotions are the rule here. And honest emotions at that. For example: When it is clear that Kinnear has blown his business opportunity, Arkin puts his hand on his son’s shoulder and tells him how brave he was, how he tried to do something that few men ever do, something that he, for one, never did in his life. This scene is astonishing in its openness and tenderness, and it would blow you away but for the simple fact that the movie is mined with these moments.
And so you lean in, getting more involved, more awake, as the miles and the movie roll on. Yeah, you’re being entertained, and royally so. But more: you’re going to school. These are smart characters, and they say smart things, and very soon you’re having a kind of conversation with them, giving them advice, as it were, or asking yourself “What would I do?” And the shocker is: What they do is just fine. They may or may not triumph, but they’re working on it. They’re alive. They’re having their lives. [To stream the movie on Amazon Prime, click here.]
There are lots of films that take ciphers, pump up the pressure and show how ordinary people do glorious things. As story “arcs” go, it’s a chestnut: it’s half the movies Tom Cruise has made, it’s “Rocky.” This is that movie too. Just better written, better acted, better directed than the others. And the little kid at the center of it — wow.
There’s an epic climax at the pageant. Watch it here. It’s the right resolution: the freaks have become a family. And for a few minutes, at least, your spirits soar.
