Little Miss Sunshine
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Adventure
Director: John Dayton, Valerie Faris
Actors: Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin, Steve Carell, Abigail Breslin
This week I’m writing about probably one of my all time favorite movies, Little Miss Sunshine. The movie is about an extended family’s trip to the Little Miss Sunshine Beauty Pageant for the daughter. The family consists of a motivational speaker father who never gives up (Greg Kinnear), a working mother (Toni Collette), a silent, Nietzche-loving son (Paul Dano), a heroine-addicted, foul-mouthed Grandpa (Alan Arkin), a gay, suicidal, scholar uncle (Steve Carell, the character was almost played by both Bill Murray and Robin Williams, but Carell did an amzaing job at being a pretty serious character), and a daughter (Abigail Breslin) who isn’t necessarily the prettiest, but still has the drive to go out and try to win the beauty pageant. The family is as eclectic as the actors who are playing them and they have a great amount of chemistry, or at least as much chemistry as your average everyday dysfunctional family has. The characters are truly the driving force behind the movie and they are what really make the movie unforgettable and different from your everyday dysfunctional family. Even though the family is so dysfunctional, the audience can still tell that the family is also very much in love and no matter how much crap they have to go through you can still tell that they still love each other and always remember that they are family.
The Dramatic-Comedy Genre (or if you like shorter words, Dramedy) is definitely my favorite genre, because life is basically a dramedy or at least the way I see life. One can find comedy in almost all facets of life and this movie does a great job of showing the comedy in everything. Even thought they have been through some very demoralizing things on their journey and in their lives in general the writers were still able to incorporate laughs and insanity into the script without making anything distasteful. This movie really exemplifies the thought that no matter how much life seems to suck, make sure you stop and laugh from time to time, because life is just as much funny as it is dramatic. Also, this movie does a great job of showing the power of family. They also do a great job of telling the audience and the characters in the play that you should never give up and whether you lose or win the road you take is always the best part.
Family is an amazing force in most people’s lives and even though some people tend to hate their families, this movie does a great job of showing that your family, no matter how dysfunctional, is always there and there are always people in your family who can help you out with anything going on in your life. Family is important, Remember to laugh, and no matter how hard life is, remember that you will end up doing fine in the end. Those are the three big ideas that I get from this film and everytime I watch it I am reminded that life is fun and that I shouldn’t take it as seriously as I do sometimes. I love this movie, like I said before and that is why I would recommend it to anyone, because I think it can help out anyone at anytime in their life. I give this movie a 10 yellow Volkswagen buses out of 10.
Movies and Improv 