Little Miss Sunshine

Husband and wife directing team Jonathon Dayton and Valerie Faris have been knocking out quality music videos, documentaries and commercials for some years now, but they deliberately held out for the right script for their debut feature. And they picked a hilarious, caustic beauty. It's also Michael Ardnt's first screenplay and perhaps it's the earnestness of an emerging writer's bloodied, sweated imagination and repeatedly distilled comedy that appealed to Drayton and Faris. It certainly creates an amiable energy that drives the whole movie from its clever first scenes, through its Odyssean comic episodes to its triumphantly biting denouement.

Arnt gleefully takes a not quite completely dysfunctional middle-American family, throws them into a frequently funny road movie and in so doing viciously pierces the underbelly of the ubiquitous ideals they supposedly hold dear. That it still manages to remain a warm, human piece is a credit to both his well-rounded characters and the totally on-form ensemble playing them. Patriarch and professional motivational speaker Richard Hoover (Kinnear) has invented the '9-step Programme for Success'. He just can't seem to sell it to get that book deal so he can be, well, successful with it. Not that this will stop him from continually 'motivating' and hectoring his family. With patience almost exhausted, long-suffering wife Sheryl (Collette) is just about keeping things together, always keen to promote her 'pro-honesty' family values, which makes for some great family dinner conversations. Not with her internally-raging teenager grunge son Dwayne (Dano) though, as he's taken a vow of silence until he gets into the Air Force. Luckily, blue-mouthed, no bullshitting Grandpa (Arkin) lives with them and is more than able to fill a pregnant pause, especially after a snort of heroin or two. He also dotes on his plumpish granddaughter, young Olive (Breslin), a bespectacled wannabee beauty queen. Finally, into the mix Sheryl invites her brother Frank (Carrell), a self-proclaimed pre-eminent Proust scholar, hot out of hospital following a suicide bid, a man who didn't think things could get any lower for him.

When Olive suddenly receives a default entry into the perilously cut-throat 'Little Miss Sunshine' beauty pageant way off in California, the whole Hoover family has to go to make her dream come true. Bundled into their rusty, not so trusty VW Camper van they head out on the highway for a tragicomic road movie that, in keeping with tradition, will change them in ways they couldn't have imagined.

The entire cast play their characters with real emotion, depth and identifiably flawed humanity. We know what Collette, Kinnear and especially Arkin are capable of and they don't disappoint, turning in great performances throughout the drama and comedy. Breslin and Dano both mark themselves out as ones to watch while Carrell excels in role that he deliberately understates to provide a touching heart to the film. As they travel, bicker and fall apart emotionally and mechanically down the highways, we're treated to regular moments of intelligent laugh-out-loud humour. Even the van gets some gags.

Arnt combines farce, situational and black comedy and social comment with deft skill. Events do verge on the absurd at one point but the cast see it through with conviction. As everyone travels further their episodic adventures and self-discoveries reveal more of the superficial social and political world they live in. Arnt swipes at everything from family values and the American Dream to ambitious parents living through their children; from fast food and body-conscious vanity, to healthcare hypocrisy, sexual mores, freedom, choice and the victims of one's continual self-satisfaction. Yep, Dubya makes a cameo on a passing TV. However, this is never too heady a mix and when they finally get to the stomach-churning beauty pageant it all builds up to a climax of brilliantly coruscating satiric criticism.

Drayton and Faris' unfussy style lets the humanity and humour in the script speak for itself. Every now and then they find the perfect shot of the one or all the Hoovers to best express what they're going through. Ultimately, they do go for a feelgood ending, which underlines a wholesome conviction in family and a healthy respect for questioning the pressures of the status quo and what you're told to strive for. It's ok, though, because the warmth you feel also comes from having pompous ideals and shallow convictions raked through the hot coals of burning satire.