Little Miss Sunshine

8/10. O.K. I'm happy to say that I have finally seen something worthwhile at the theater. A welcome relief from all the third-rate stuff that we were plagued with for the whole summer.

The story is about a cute little kid ("Olive" / Abigail Breslin) who is being prepped for a child beauty contest known as "Little Miss Sunshine". Her family is a quirky bunch, with a dirty old man for a grandfather, an "achievement counselor" father and a brother who is immersed in dark German classics (Nietzsche...!) due to which he hasn't talked for a year. Finally there is an uncle who recently tried to commit suicide after being spurned by his male graduate student in favor of a rival colleague in academia. Quite a mouthful eh? The mother (Toni Collette) appears to be the most sane member of the family. Yay, mothers.

The family finds that it must set off together on a road-trip across state lines to deliver Olive to the beauty contest. And so they depart in their rickety old van with their journey resulting in more crazy situations than can be imagined. For the sake of secrecy I will not disclose them...but a corpse is involved at one point. The movie somehow manages to tackle some social issues too, but in a very non-threatening way. For example, the brother represents all those teenage dudes that are cutoff from peers and descend into nihilistic weirdness (columbine??). However he worships Nietzsche and not Manson. The other issue is child beauty contests. The movie doesn't say so explicitly but as the show goes on, it becomes pretty clear that they should be banned. I'm not quite sure what the homosexual professor-jilted lover-uncle signifies - perhaps he is just there for fun. But the achievement counselor father is definitely a caricature of the various "ten-point" or "fifteen-point" programs for success that are peddled by some low-lifes in this country. The drone armies of Amway and Quikstar automatically come to mind. Interestingly, since I left Texas I haven't been assaulted by them...perhaps Hawaii is an oasis of peace in this war. Well, one more reason to go the aloha way!

The movie is really funny and has a great finale, which I shouldn't reveal either. It's not terribly deep...just lighthearted entertainment with trademark quirky americanisms. Worth $8 at the theater.