Little Miss Sunshine

A little girl called Olive has a shot at winning the Little Miss Sunshine pageant and her whole crazy family has to accompany her going there, travelling hundreds of miles together in a van. Her dad is a motivational speaker and would-be bestselling how-to-fix-your-life author who is secretly terrified of failure. Her grandpa is a grizzled and aggressive user of hard drugs, thrown out of his retirement home for bad behaviour and now living with his unwilling extended family. Olive's teenage brother Dwayne refuses to speak. While Olive's Uncle Frank is a deeply depressed gay who is recovering from a suicide attempt. Indeed, she has a dysfunctional family.

Now, if you have plans of showing this at home, parents/guardians/whoever-it-is need to know that this family road trip movie includes sexual slang and references to drugs, mostly by the grandfather. Pornographic magazines (only the covers are shown) and a comedic striptease figure are also into the plot and that characters discuss depression and suicide (Uncle Frank has cut his wrists before the movie starts; his bandages are visible). There are conversations about "winning" and "losing," as measured by financial success. There is also a character who dies about halfway through the film; the family then wraps up his body and carries it in their van to their destination. And lastly, characters curse (several "f--k"s), and the mother smokes a couple of cigarettes.

This movie is inappropriate for young tweens and teens.This isn't "just another family road trip comedy", as I thought it would be--this was DARK, QUIRKY COMEDY at its best. The acting was brilliant though, the characters were unusual and the ending was touching and unpredictable. It gives a lesson that family should stick together and nobody should be left behind.

 I watched this movie with an open mind, but really didn't enjoy it.

RATING: ★★✰✰✰