Little Miss Sunshine - Review

This was a funny one. I don't mean funny in the raucous, giggling way, but in slightly more of a chin-rub way.

The film starts with the arrival of suicidal Frank, (Steve Carrell) at his sister's house. It's there that he meets his new family: a mute nephew, a competitive brother-in-law, a precocious niece and a drug-addicted granddad.

When I got past that fact that the father is played by Greg Kinnear, who was also Benjamin Hobart in Friends: "Spell mboscodictiosaur" and the silent boy was a geeky character from The Girl Next Door; the plot carried itself along nicely.

The acting was impeccable, and the dysfunctional family created a contrast with the seemingly normal world around them. When they scratch the surface however, and enter the youngest daughter into the Little Miss Sunshine Beauty Pageant, it becomes clear that they are the rational ones in an imperfect (and often creepy) world.

Not knowing what to expect, the film neither surpassed nor disappointed my expectations; it was charming, yet the uncomfortable subject matter made me squirm a little, and most of the laughs were of the nervous variety. I wouldn't call this a comedy; I'd call it a darkly comic farce.

Maybe I'm just being a pleb....I still enjoyed it though.