Co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris not only make a long dinner scene interesting, but an interminable drive through a visually boring landscape also never gets old.
Comment
07/27/06
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
90
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:197
Fresh:178
Rotten:19
Average Rating:7.7/10
Consensus: What happens when you stuff a failed motivation speaker, his wife, the nation's number one Proust scholar, an elderly potty-mouthed heroin addict, a teen who’s mute by choice, and a bespectacled little pageant hopeful into a mini VW bus for a three day road trip? You get this hilarious but moving satire about a dysfunctional family obsessed with winning. Credit must go to the ensemble cast that includes Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, and Abigail Breslin and the delightfully funny script by Michael Arndt, which first-time directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris handled perfectly.
Theatrical Release:08-09-2006
Synopsis: "Little Miss Sunshine" is an American family road comedy that shatters the mold. Brazenly satirical and yet deeply human, the film introduces audiences to one of the most endearingly fractured... [More]
Starring: Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin
Director: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
Reviews for Little Miss Sunshine
161 - 180 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Sets a new standard for the tried-and-true dysfunctional family road comedy.
07/26/06
Sorry, folks, but these are not organic characters; they're walking, talking catalogs of screenwriter index-card data.
07/26/06
Little Miss Sunshine employs razor-sharp humor and a deceptively realistic style to satirize a corrupt society that heroes of low status must navigate by their wits alone.
07/26/06
Top CriticThe characters in the Sundance hit Little Miss Sunshine are so adeptly drawn -- and superbly played -- that you can easily forgive the film's sometimes forced kookiness.
07/26/06
Little Miss Sunshine isn't the kind of movie you want to beat up on: It's sweet-tempered at its core, and even when it's trying too hard to reinforce its own quirks, the charms of its actors filter through effortlessly.
07/26/06
Little Miss Sunshine is a dysfunctional-family comedy with a crucial difference -- the function progresses, hilariously, from dys to full and loving.
07/26/06
There is nothing inherently sunny about Little Miss Sunshine, and that's part of the fresh and clever lunacy of this deliciously dark comedy.
07/26/06
What makes husband-and-wife directing team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' hilarious debut such a great family film isn't that it's suitable for the whole family (it's not), but that it speaks a simple truth about what it means to be part of one.
07/26/06
This is a feel-good movie that is not dependent on gags or stupid gimmicks, but on intelligently observed, slightly cockeyed people and their interactions. It is positive and uplifting, and a grand time is had by all.
07/26/06
The casting is flawless. Kinnear has never been better suited to a role; Richard's gradual surrender of his ego is sweet and totally convincing. Arkin has the best lines, and delivers them with the timing of a vaudeville pro.
07/26/06
Mining humor from subjects like suicide, drug abuse and bad parenting, the picture isn't going to win any congeniality prizes, but it's amusingly bitter. Consider it summer fun for pessimists and misanthropes.
07/26/06
A smart, dark road comedy about a dysfunctional family that had them rolling in the aisles at this year's Sundance Film Festival.
07/26/06
Little Miss Sunshine is saved by an ace -- its cast.
07/26/06
Little Miss Sunshine has not a hint of exploitation about it, and it's sentimental only in the best sense of the word. Like its heroine Olive Hoover, it wears its heart on its sleeve and assumes the best about everyone.
07/25/06
This bittersweet comedy of dysfunction takes place at the terminus of the American dream, where families are one bad break away from bankruptcy.
07/25/06
Top CriticLike the shambling VW van its hapless characters steer from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach, Little Miss Sunshine is a rickety vehicle that travels mostly downhill.
07/25/06
Little Miss Sunshine often emits the dulcet quirkiness of such vintage road comedies as Harry and Tonto and Melvin and Howard.
07/25/06
There's something mildly endearing about the film's joyful celebration of loserdom.
07/25/06
It takes a deft hand to fashion a feel-good movie with plenty of laughs and an upbeat ending out of a story that includes drug addiction, a suicide attempt, a death, Nietzsche, and Proust.
07/25/06
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