Ever since it debuted to rollicking response at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, “Little Miss Sunshine” has been destined for “indie” success. It has a nifty cast, an eccentric situation and lots of recognizable family craziness.
I had a good time watching this movie, and I have no problem recommending it to just about anybody. Yet something about it feels forced. If a computer wanted to construct a quirky indie comedy, they couldn’t do better than this product.
The family in question is the Hoovers, an Albuquerque, N.M., clan composed of various curdled parts of the American Dream. Richard and Sheryl (Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette, both shrewdly cast) are sacrificing everything for the sake of his idiotic fantasy about being a self-help guru.
Their teenage son Dwayne (Paul Dano) won’t speak out loud, because of something he read in Nietzsche. Little daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) is obsessed with entering a kiddie beauty pageant, even though she is far from the glitzy stereotype of Miss America.
Abruptly and somewhat incredibly, the family finds itself lighting out in their VW van on a road trip to Southern California, bound for a beauty pageant. The family’s cranky Grandpa (Alan Arkin in expert form) is along, too.
So is Sheryl’s brother, Frank (Steve Carell), a suicidal gay professor who claims to be the world’s No. 1 Proust scholar. Carell, whose career has lately exploded thanks to “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” does nicely in a role that’s almost entirely depressed looks and bitter one-liners.
The movie is arranged around the road trip, and there are some hilarious moments. Grandpa’s romantic advice to his sullen nephew, which cannot be quoted here, is a priceless reversal of the expected grandfatherly counsel.
Another skillfully handled piece of farce is Frank’s attempt to buy porno magazines from a roadside convenience store, only to bump into the grad student who broke his heart.
In its final third, there’s a left turn into black comedy (and a twisted echo of an incident from “The Grapes of Wrath,” which this family’s road trip is perhaps meant to parody). Once arrived at the Little Miss Sunshine Pageant, the opportunities for wrapping up some homely lessons within a slapstick framework are neatly laid out.
This movie should be a hit, and screenwriter Michael Arndt should have his career laid out for him. There’s something too pre-digested about the material for it to be truly memorable, however, no matter how cool its soundtrack or how much indie cred it has.
Toni Collette (left), Abigail Breslin, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano, Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear star in “Little Miss Sunshine.”
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