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Review

Nothing more than Meet the Fockers for elitists (or maybe Flirting with Disaster for dummies), Little Miss Sunshine is the latest overhyped, overpraised letdown to emerge from Sundance – must be the high altitude. Like a first draft of a Screenplays 101 course, there are too many one-note characters, coincidental plot twists and contrived situations to overlook, squandering some splendid performances and at least a few good laughs in the process.

When their cute but pudgy daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) miraculously qualifies at the last minute for the big Little Miss Sunshine beauty contest, her parents (Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette) decide to throw their whole dysfunctional family into a ramshackle VW van for a harried road trip to California. Nevermind that flying the mom & the kid alone would really be cheaper, or that the suicidal gay Proustian scholar (Steve Carell) could easily stay home with the non-speaking vow-of-silence son (Paul Dano), or that heroin-snorting foul-mouthed Grandpa (Alan Arkin) would keep the raunchy nature of the kid's routine a secret, or that none of the ridiculous bunch would have no idea what beauty pageants are really like. No, it's a comedy, so these somewhat pathetic characters are forced together so that each can have their one joke, one punchline, and one moment of half-hearted character growth before the big setpiece at the end. Yawn.

This is filmmaking at its most cynical: Creating smug characters and letting them wallow in their delusions, to the delight of even smugger audiences. It's more winceworthy than funny, despite an energetic turn by Arkin (unfortunately cut off National Lampoon's Vacation-style) and a naturally precocious performance by young Miss Breslin. That this was marketed as an "indie film" is perhaps the biggest shame of all. Prepare to be disappointed.

 -- David Gorgos