JIFFest: Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Meet the Hoovers. Little Olive was seven-year-old, she wanted to enter a beauty peagant, Little Miss Sunshine and intend to made it worthwhile for her. Her father was a struggling, if not failing motivator spokeperson who can't get any audience and often were at odds with his wife, an overworked mother who barely able to even prepared a proper meal for family's dinner. Her grandfather was recently kicked out of a nurse home because of his drug-habit and liberal way of sex. Her uncle was a gay who recently tried to kill himself after his companion refused his love. And her brother was on a nine months vow of silence until he gets into an Air Force, claiming that he hates everyone. One thing that this family would be reluctantly agreed upon, eventually. They will travel several hundred miles in a battered VW bus from Albequerque to California to take Little Olive to her first shot of fame, a beauty peagant, Little Miss Sunshine.

December edition of Premiere Magazine named Little Miss Sunshine as the second seed for a Best Picture of this year's Oscar (the first seeds were: Babel, Flags of Our Father, The Departed, Dreamgirls, and The Queen), and it was clearly the most funniest film of the year. And i believe that all 420 people in that packed Djakarta Theater last night were agreed on this.

There were long cheers and clapping after the film ends. This film has been a darling to the critics, Sundance Film Festival's favourite, and making more money than its makers could possibly imagine. All for good reasons. The film never fell apart to a chessy drama between families. The problems were not solved but agreed upon. And by the time we see that battered VW bus going again, we knew that things had changed between the family members, was it for better? or was it for worse? nobody could tell, it was up to the Hoovers to deal with their own. And us, audience, after a joyride with the Hoovers were bowed out. See, that's because in real life, problems within family weren't solved they
were dealt. And that's way this film had my excellent rating.

Little Miss Sunshine's truly perfect ensemble cast live up to the excellent script that was real which is to say, that the script wasn't meant as a joke on the family's part. They were what most likely you had in a family but we're able to share their laughs. Steve Carrell's departure from comedy doesn't flail and Paul Dano who didn't speak almost two thrid of the film deliver the film's strongest performance during the opening of the third act. Abigail Breslin, a seven year-old who plays Olive didn't trapped into being cutey little girly that her peers often fell into, and Alan Arkin as grandpa practically steals every single scene he's on.

And you could ask me for whatever money you spent for this film if you didn't at least crack a smile when the peagant came into a talent show-off section. Come on, this film is impossible not to love.

Little Miss Sunshine, 2006
Directed by: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
Running Time:
My Rating: ***1/2 / **** (Hillarious)