Greetings from the Land of Enchantment

Little Miss Sunshine

Well folks, I wrote a great review of this movie this morning and then lost it....ouch! I don't know that I have it in me to reproduce it, but here's a try:

Little Miss Sunshine is the funniest movie I've seen in years. Granted it stars some of my favorite actors currently working today: Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear, who pull of their respective roles beautifully. But it's also one of the most brilliant screenplays I've seen come to life on the screen. This beautiful, loser family goes on a road trip to pursue a little girl's dream.

The parents: a hard-working mom who's seen it all and is at the end of her proverbial rope when it comes to her husband, the cock-eyed optimist who has quit his job to pursue his dream as a pursuasive speaker and writer. Only problem is he's a loser and his book is about how to be a winner! Needless to say a bad combination. There's a heroin-addict grandpa, brilliant cameo role by Alan Arkin, and a love-sick, imminent Proust scholar and post-suicide gay brother along for the ride, again brilliantly played by none other than Steve Carrell, probably the best comedic actor to come around in years. The two children include a meloncholy misanthrop teenage boy who hates everything (except Nietzche of course) and a young, 6-year-old girl who has become a finalist, inexplicably it seems, in the Little Miss SUnshine pageant in S. California.

So, this family of misfits takes off from Albuquerque in a beat-up VW van and the adventures follow. I can't recount them all but let's just say, you can't believe it's happening and yet you can. And you're laughing all the way--even when you're uncomfortable about laughing. The moral of the story for me was about the power of failure (could be the story of my life) but it doesn't hurt that the movie ends in a hilarious, yet scathing indictment of the child pageant industry.

Go see this movie! Do not pass go, do not collect $200, but you will garner a lot of laughs!

posted by Sat Purkh Kaur Khalsa @ 3:15 PM