Yesterday I went to see Little Miss Sunshine with Husband. I loved it. It’s a funny laugh-aloud-real-hard movie and it’s a deep and serious movie. I know, I do tend to see deep hidden meanings in movies that are flat like two-dimensional branes—take for example, most B sci-fi movies made in the 50s and 60s—so I’m not completely sure everybody would agree with me; still, I’m almost positive this movie is deep.
I’m not going to tell you the story, because it would ruin the surprise for those of you who have yet to see the movie (what are you waiting, anyway? IMDB gives Little Miss Sunshine 8.4 stars).
Now that I’ve mentioned it, I strongly warn you against reading reviews or any other written, audio, or video material that tell you too much about the story. I don’t understand why people tell the entire story of a movie when they write a review. Why would you want to learn what happens in the movie before watching it? Wouldn’t you feel you have waisted your $8-10 per person (not counting the popcorns and the soda)? I think reviewers should write two separate reviews. One for people who have not seen the movie (“The movie is really good, go watch it, especially if you liked Garden State” or “this movie is really bad and you shouldn’t watch it, unless you liked Gigli or From Justin to Kelly“). The other review is for people who have seen the movie and want to know what they missed or completely misunderstood, or would like to impress a special friend with their sophisticated thoughts on the movie.
But I digress. What I can tell you is that Little Miss Sunshine touches all our mass media social myths (the celebration of Barbie-style beauty, winners and losers, the obsession with body image) and portrays a frightening image of child beauty pageants. That you will end up liking even the most obnoxious member of the crazy Hoover family. That Abigail Breslin as Olive is the perfect incarnation of a little miss sunshine.
Oh, and the movie website plays with the web; Dwayne and Richard Hoover have their lists at 43 Things; the site calls people to contribute to the Little Miss Sunshine entry on Wikipedia; the Little Miss Sunshine page on MySpace offers a free skin for your MySpace site.
So, go see the movie in a small movie theater. And then, everybody just pretend to be normal.
Technorati Tags: movie, little miss sunshine, review
August 29, 2006
I can’t remember the last time I went to watch a movie where i laughed so hard. And then after seeing it a second time [in about 3 weeks] I was still crying tears of joy during the final scene. I was laughing so hard it hurt. I’m glad you liked it too. I can’t wait for the DVD to come out.
August 29, 2006
I agree with Albert – I laughed a lot. I loved this movie. I tend to like movies that don’t insult my intelligence!
August 29, 2006
Agreed; really powerful movie. Unlike some indie films which have a special feeling that grabs me right away (Lost in Translation, for example) and holds me the whole way, this film built really interestingly. I don’t mean anything as obvious as “I was bored the first 20 minutes but it grew one me” but that the process of really knowing the characters and having a strong connection with them indeed took the whole movie.
Indeed, the climax of the film was stuff we’ve seen before. But it touched me in a certain way because of i) the nuances of how well it was done and ii) the groundwork that had been done in advance of that.