Little Miss Sunshine Review

The chassis is unmistakably of its moment, the deadpan road trip with the ironic soundtrack and the dysfunctional family unit, and plenty of films built on that template are unwatchable now. This one survives because the writing gives every member a real and specific failure. Greg Kinnear's motivational speaker is a genuinely sad creation, a man selling a philosophy of winning while losing continuously, and the film is tough enough to let his humiliation land without softening it afterward.

Alan Arkin is filthy and warm, Toni Collette holds the whole thing together with the least showy work in the picture, and Paul Dano's vow of silence is a bit that pays off in a single scream at the roadside. Abigail Breslin is used carefully rather than cutely. The pageant finale is the sequence everyone remembers and it is the weakest part, a broad target hit broadly, and the satire of competitive childhood sits a level below the observation of adult disappointment. The bus that will not start is a better joke than the pageant. It stays funny, and it has an unusually clear view of failure.