Product Details

• Actors: Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Bryan Cranston, Beth Grant, Wallace Langham
• Format: AC-3, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: October 13, 2009
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B002KGREJW
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #293,992 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars They are superfreaks, August 7, 2009

By	E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Every year has at least one quirky movie that really captures your heart and imagination, and in the year 2006, that little movie was "Little Miss Sunshine."

Yes, it's another dark comedy about a quirky, dysfunctional family. But "Little Miss Sunshine" approaches the family dysfunction from a bizarre, smart, and sometimes slightly nuts perspective. This indie movie deserves all the credit that is being heaped on it -- it's truly glorious.

Richard (Greg Kinnear) is an anxious motivational speaker who talks a lot about "winners" and "losers," which is pretty funny when one considers that his family is full of oddities. His wife Sheryl (Toni Colette) is on edge as Richard inflicts his nine-step program on the family, and her Proust-scholar brother has just arrived, after a failed suicide attempt.

And then there's little Olive (Abigail Breslin) -- she's wants to be in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, and is being coached by her outspoken, heroin-snorting grandfather. When she gets into the pageant, the family piles into a minibus to go to Redondo Beach. Unfortunately, the trip exposes all the problems they have -- death, disappointment, suicide and lost dreams. And a broken clutch.

If you're going to make a dark comedy about a family, then for crying out loud, give it a heart. "Little Miss Sunshine" realizes this, in a little family world where a wordless hug speaks more than dozens of empty lines. These people drive each other crazy, don't ever communicate, but they really do love each other -- yes, even foulmouthed Grandpa.

But lest anyone think it's syrupy, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris wrap it in a wicked cocoon of clever humor. "Sarcasm is the refuge of losers," Richard says smugly, only to receive a sarcastic "REALLY?" He's not the only one: each character has his or her own odd spots, and a unique way of expressing it. ("High school's your prime suffering years! You don't get better suffering than that!").

And while a road trip sounds dull, Dayton and Faris drop little incidents through it that keep it fresh, even if it's just hiccups from the horn. The climax of the strangeness is the "Fawlty Towers"esque smuggling of a dead body, and a truly surreal song-and-dance sequence. It has to score a 9.5 on the "bizarre endings" scale.

Abigail Breslin is a simply brilliant little actress -- cute, yet not cutesy -- and she tends to fill up the screen with her natural appeal. The other actors wear their parts like comfy old sweaters, such as Colette's weary mother and her business-obsessed hubby, not to mention Alan Arkin's priceless turn as the drug-snorting patriarch.

"Little Miss Sunshine" is a comedy as dark as it is funny, but somehow it never becomes depressing. Instead, it's a little gem of an indie film.