This is the weirdest, most dysfunctional, family road movie ever in recent memory. Also, it's an inspiring, funny, touching film about family values, American dreams and living life knowing the winners and losers and anything in between that we all belong. I never expected that such a small-budgeted, independent, supposed-to-be Sundance-oriented film, would turn out to be a classic gem. Well of course aside from the fact that it has been nominated for Oscar Best Picture this year, I shall say such little efforts could go rolling the big time highway.

From the opening montage, we see a little girl name Olive (Abigail Breslin) with her blue eyes seemingly drifting behind the wide spectacles, watching a recorded beauty pageant on the telly and she's imitating the winner along with the waves and gasps and smiles. Her dream: she wanted to be a beauty pageant queen, and that's where the movie will take us to, the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant where Olive happened to be a contestant.

Then we meet the family in this very long and impressive take in the dining table. We meet Richard (Greg Kinnear), a teacher also a speaker who's motivational speeches about success is utterly a failure and obsessed psychologically and pathologically with winning (obviously because he hasn't won yet in about anything). His wife, Sheryl (Toni Colette) is a mother willing to give anything to share importance about being a family and on the brink of constantly comforting his ill brother, which is Frank (Steve Carell), a Number One Proust Scholar, who attempted suicide because he fell in love with another graduate student who chose to be with the Number Two Proust Scholar. Olive (Abigail Breslin), Sheryl and Richard's daughter, is a delightful little girl who's ultimate dream is to win a beauty contest, in spite of her chubby figure. Dwayne (Paul Dano) is Olive's older brother, is a loner, or chose to be alone most of the time and also chose not to speak since the last nine months, preparing for his entry into a flight school. And he hates everyone, and he means - everyone. Last member of the family is Grandpa (Alan Arkin), who's raunchy behaviour, despite of his old age, appears quite ridiculous, unfitting but funny indeed. They're like any other family, table arguments, heated conversations, unspeakable contempts for each other, but when they embark into a 700-mile journey from their home in Albuquerque to Redondo Beach in California, their road journey turns out to be a lot messier but full of discovery, funny moments, poignant scenes and an ending that would surely give your heart a boost and wrench for somehow realising that "family" is the first and the last thing that would be there for you at all times, at all cost.

The script was brilliantly written and as you listen along with the dialogues, there is a feel of realism around it, especially the most talks were set inside their yellow VW van, which they keep pushing whenever they start driving. Performance-wise, this is a brilliantly acted film. Kudos to everyone, especially Abigail Breslin, whose warm little personality shines bright. Who could forget the most funny one-liner in the film, when she was asked where her grandpa was during the beauty pageant, she smile innocently: "In the trunk of the car." Toni Colette was just amazing, and her work here is so understated as the mother and Steve Carell was just equally hilarious. The more he is silent, the more he becomes a lot funnier. Paul Dano, who plays the angsty Dwayne, gives a multi-faceted dimension in his character, along with his sulky eyes, pale skin with black bangs to match with. The scenes where he just scribbles in his notepad shows so much teenage notoriety and hatred, that when he finally blows up when he discovered he was colourblind, it all swelled bursting, the frustration, the unending commitment to his dream.One of the best lines in the film came from his, spatting in fury that "Life is a fucking beauty pageant."

Little Miss Sunshine deserves a standing ovation, not just because it is a funny film but also for the fact that it could be a wonderful piece for all humanity. It tells us that we are all dysfunctional in our own ways and life would surely teach us that it's not in winning that we learn a lot of stuff, but in failures. It brilliantly sidestepped the dark subjects of death and dysfunction, creating a light comedy of human drama, belonging to the one-of-the-best-films-this-year order. I was just so amazed by the ending, where Olive performs her talent act, in which his crazy grandfather had taught him, and the family just went along dancing with her pouring all the emotions into one scene. It's one of the best scenes in a family movie so far and you just couldn't help to be involved and to relate as well. So far, Little Miss Sunshine is the most successful indie film you'll see in 2006.


Rating: A