Family outing.Little Miss Sunshine * Starring Greg Kinnear, Tani Collette, Alan Arkin, Steve Carell * Fox Searchlight * Limited theatrical release begins July 26 My recommendation that you drop everything and drive 200 miles, if necessary, to see Little Miss Sunshine comes down to one thing: I was still laughing out loud as the credits rolled. And as my partner can attest, I'm not an easy target for movie comedy. Wink-wink goofiness and calculated slapstick leave me ice-cold. Sharp-tongued believable people who are a little off-balance and backed into farcical situations by their own quirks--now that's funny. Sunshine crams six people from one dysfunctional family dysfunctional family Psychology A family with multiple 'internal'–eg sibling rivalries, parent-child– conflicts, domestic violence, mental illness, single parenthood, or 'external'–eg alcohol or drug abuse, extramarital affairs, gambling, into a decrepit van and puts them on the road to the misbegotten mis·be·got·ten adj. 1. a. Of, relating to, or being a child or children born to unmarried parents. b. Not lawfully obtained: misbegotten wealth. 2. children's beauty contest of the title. The cast is delightful: the divine Toni Collette as Mom; Greg Kinnear as Dad, effectively annoying for once; Alan Arkin as the deliciously bitter Grandpa; Paul Dano (teen star of L.I.E.) as the willfully willfully adv. referring to doing something intentionally, purposefully and stubbornly. Examples: "He drove the car willfully into the crowd on the sidewalk." "She willfully left the dangerous substances on the property." (See: willful) mute, Nietzsche-obsessed son; and natural newcomer Abigail Breslin as the pageant-obsessed daughter. The token gay is uncle Frank, a Proust professor dumped on his sister's family while recovering from a suicide attempt. It's a role that suits Steve Carell's deadpan, sad-sack persona to a tee, and the gay twist offers a few moments of comic genius, especially with Arkin. Indeed, the whole movie is perfectly paced and balanced between the bittersweet bittersweet, name for two unrelated plants, belonging to different families, both fall-fruiting woody vines sometimes cultivated for their decorative scarlet berries. and the achingly ridiculous. It's a road movie blissfully free of larcenous lar·ce·nous adj. 1. Of, relating to, or involving larceny: a larcenous scheme; with larcenous intent. 2. Guilty of or given to larceny. hitchhikers or other cliches that nevertheless keeps piling on the absurdities--each emerging organically from its cast of characters. It's comedy as art, not artifice. I do have a final "trend alert" to report: Carell follows Richard Dreyfuss in Poseidon in what appears to be a new stock role: the postsuicidal gay man recently dumped by a younger lover whose sexuality has little to do with the rest of the movie. Not that I'm complaining (yet). Dreyfuss wound up an unlikely hero, and Carell comes across as the sanest person in Sunshine. If suicidal ideation suicidal ideation Suicidality Psychiatry Mental thoughts and images which hinge around committing suicide. See Suicide. somehow gives gay men some movie gravitas grav·i·tas n. 1. Substance; weightiness: a frivolous biography that lacks the gravitas of its subject. 2. , bring it on. |
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