The opening scenes, especially the one at dinner, are filled with comedic, yet painful tension, as this family threatens to split open at the seams. However, in Little Miss Sunshine, each of the characters has their own personality, their own struggles, and their own issues, and they do whatever they can to keep the others out of their lives. So many of these flicks leave viewers wanting to know more about their favorite minor character, but, because there is a time issue involved in film-making, there’s always at least one character’s personality that has to be diminished and/or their little bit of story never finds fulfillment or resolution. Most screenwriters, when employing ensemble casts, quite often still find ways to focus upon two or three primary characters, no matter how many people the publicists claim are intimately involved in the story (with a good example being Love Actually, though I do really enjoy that movie). One of the things that struck me most in this movie was how deftly intertwined the highly-individualized storylines of the six main characters were. In fact, I’m going to go as far as to openly state that this movie (along with the recently-released-on-DVD, but hardly-seen-in-theaters Brick) just may have restored my faith in the existence of truly original screenplays in the cinematic world.
Little Miss Sunshine, without a singular doubt, is one of the most creative and substantive movies that I have seen in many years. However, having seen this movie on the first night that it was open nationally, I must declare, quite definitively, that the wait has been very much worth it. This movie has been on the horizon for quite a long time – it’s taken over five years to make Focus Features was involved until 2004 before it backed out and Turtletaub finally had to agree to back much of the film on his own, after initially paying $250,000 for the script in the first place.
Directors: Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris
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