Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Looking Closer

Home
Religious Music & Entertainment
Four views of "Little Miss Sunshine," and mine…

Four views of "Little Miss Sunshine," and mine…

Last updated on: January 14, 2013 at 1:55 pm by Jeffrey Overstreet

Four views of "Little Miss Sunshine," and mine… 2013-01-14T13:55:42-07:00 Jeffrey Overstreet

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Cauton: Spoilers ahead!

The little movie that could … and that may, indeed, become an Oscar dark horse… is winning many and varied responses from film critics I know and respect. Here are a few different reactions and thoughts…

J. Robert Parks of Framing Device:

What’s especially impressive is how true to life this all rings. In an early scene, the family scurries around the kitchen, fussing with each other as they try to get dinner on the table, and it reminded me of my own childhood years. There are also the inevitable family disagreements and irritations, as three generations struggle to coalesce. Soon, we realize that the hustle and bustle is a way of avoiding the awful silences, the moments when people are afraid of what they might say or hear.

But the movie isn’t some disillusioned attack on the suburban family. Instead, it achieves what few comedies can–a balance of tone. The slapsticky moments give way to scenes of genuine pathos, the stinging satire is offset by the warm camaraderie. The characters snap at each other as relatives do and get underneath each other’s skin, but there’s also a deep undercurrent of affection.

Jason Morehead at Opuszine:

All of the characters’ foibles are simply there to drive the plot forward, and maybe generate a few giggles (or winces) along the way. There aren’t any characters in the film, only caricatures.

…

Perhaps Little Miss Sunshine‘s biggest failing is that it isn’t quirky enough.

…

However, the Hoovers of Little Miss Sunshine clearly exist within the “real” world … and so their quirks become even more obvious and generated, manipulated to be as strange and indie as possible.

And sadly, the eventual (and predictable) resolutions lack the sense of joy and healing, the dramatic “oomph”, that they could have had otherwise. Rather, they feel perfunctory, lightly tossed off so that the movie can get back to the quirks and oddities, or rather, its attempts at the quirks and oddities, all the while winking at the audience, hoping that folks don’t realize how cliched it’s become.

Denny Wayman and Hal Conklin of Cinema in Focus:

The caricatured dysfunction of the Hoover family gives “Little Miss Sunshine” a comical appearance. But when we stop laughing and consider the people, we are confronted with painful personal and spiritual emptiness.

…

The broken-down van which carries this broken family becomes the vehicle to pull them together to push themselves on down the road. But it isn’t California or the pretentious beauty pageant that is their true destination. It is finding some dignity in their humanity and love in their family.

And… as noted earlier… Barbara Nicolosi of ACT ONE: Writing for Hollywood:

…it involves a family in which the father is an ambitious jerk. The mother is an impotent whiner. And, OF COURSE, the only really compassionate, intelligent and caring member of the family is the gay uncle Frank, who is recovering from having slit his wrists. (And he is the sane one.)

I found during the movie that the audience was laughing at moments in which the family’s shame was particularly exposed. The humor was to point at the people in the family and sneer, “What an assh*le!” or “What a hypocrite!”

I feel absolutely sure that a legion of critics – and certainly Christians! – will passionately defend this film. They will relish its “fresh satiric critique ” of post-modernity. They will say things about how wonderful it was for the family to end the film accepting each other in a stirring moment of loyalty and love. They will say that this movie is clearly just not my kind of taste, and that engaging culture means that we shouldn’t get stuck on little things like vulgarity, profanity, crassness and the exaltation of meaninglessness.

They will be absurd. Swallowing camels of human degradation and straining out gnats of “niceness”.

Pass on Little Miss Sunshine. It won’t make you a better person. It won’t make you love your neighbors more. It will fill your spirit with cynicism and sneering. Pass. Pass. Pass.

So… what did I think of it?

I believe in these characters the way I believed in the characters of Pieces of April. I feel like I know these people. I know families like this. Sure, they’re an outrageous and tempestuous and perverse crew of people, but so are a lot of families I’ve met. I laughed not to sneer, but in painful recognition of just how blind, self-absorbed, and audacious people can be.

They were real to me. And kudos to the cast for making such a motley crew of extreme personalities convincing as a family. Each actor was dead-on. Steve Carrell continues to amaze, and Alan Arkin still has it after all these years.

But when the movie reached the Big Sad Twist, I said to myself, “Oh dear… if this goes where I think it’s going, I’m not sure I’m buying it. That can happen in Vacation, but not in this movie’s world.”

And when they did go there… that outrageous “sneak the big heavy bundle out through the hospital window” scene… I didn’t go with them.

Then, there was the encounter with the twisted policeman. Nope, sorry, not buying it. Something like that can happen in Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas-world, with that scary Gary Busey cop, but I just didn’t buy it here, in this world. It felt like they’d mixed up their chocolate and their peanut butter. The wackiness was too wacky to exist alongside the pathos, which seemed so real.

And it just went downhill from there. The characters… love ’em. Would follow them anywhere. The events? They just get too zany and madcap. We’re talking Raising Arizona stuff. In the Coen Brothers world, I could suspend disbelief. But Pieces of April and The Big Lebowski are two different kinds of movies, and what works in Lebowski-land just seems too implausible for Pieces of April land.

By the time little Olive starts into her show-stopping number, I was straining to hold on, but the film had gone off the rails for me.

Still, I’d see it again for the performances. I’ve met people like these… I’ve even met families like these… I’ve spent my share of time in Roswell and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and in Mount Shasta, California, where you’ll find all kinds of families that stay together by some kind of spectacular chance, each person off in their own wild orbit. (Well, hey, I live in Seattle, and if I threw a rock I’d hit a member of a family like this.)

No, this is not a movie that’s dragging us through the gutter with some outrageously sick agenda. It’s an honest exploration of whether or not a family like this is redeemable in an American culture that sets them up to feel like failures and losers. If I lash out at a movie because the characters behave perversely, I’m training myself to respond to people in the real world that way too. I’ve met families more broken and misguided than this… and yet, they stay together… out of need, even though they’re accustomed to being judged and avoided by the pious.

And as far as that goes, I found Little Miss Sunshine entertaining, amusing, ironic, sobering, and even touching. The child pageant scene was meant to be horrifying, and it was. And that’s what really happens, as the resurrection of the JonBenet Ramsey spectacle has reminded us. (There’s so much focus on that sick, sick man who claimed to have raped and killed her. But why isn’t anyone talking about how the Ramsey family practically baited sexual predators by turning their daughter into a sex object and parading her around?) Olive’s number was over the top and shocking, but her approach is a slight exaggeration of the norm that should serve to wake us up to what’s really happening there. It reminded me of the episode in South Park when the mothers all take their girls to the cute S&M costume shop because it’s the new back-to-school fashion. It’s stretching the truth in order to draw our attention to the truth. Flannery O’Connor, hit ’em with a sledgehammer, shout at the deaf culture, etc. … this is it.

It’s not for all audiences, no, but it’s an admirable effort.

In the end, though, I just couldn’t believe in them. Too much wackiness mixed with characters I feel like I could walk down the street and talk with.

I look forward to the next film by this husband/wife director team. Their hearts are in the right place, and they know how to work with actors… a rare and formidable combination.

Blog

Little Miss Sunshine

Previous Post

August 28, 2006

Thrilling "Shadows"

Next Post

August 31, 2006 Must-read of the week: Six conversion-to-Catholicism stories.

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Blog Bloggers on "Through a Screen Darkly" Browser Coming Soon Endorsements Fiction Books Film Forum Film Reviews Inspirations Interviews Journal Kindlings Muse Movie buzz Music Reviews Non-Fiction Books radio Reviewers on "Through a Screen Darkly" The Auralia Thread Through a Screen Darkly Through a Screen Darkly - Bonus Materials Top 10 (or 20 or 100) lists Uncategorized

Select a Month June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 July 2003 May 2003 March 2003 September 1999

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was a "phylactery," criticized by Jesus in Matthew 23?

Select your answer to see how you score.

A lamp A small box with Scripture A fishing net A robe