Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

USA
directed by: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
written by: Michael Arndt
starring: Abigail Breslin, Paul Dano, Steve Carell 
comment. 2nd March, 2018

Damn, I would never have thought that I'd have to spend so much time with a film like Little Miss Sunshine to even figure out what I want to say. I saw it once before just after it came out and I only remember being perplexed as to why do they refer to Olive as fat when the litte girl obviously isn't fat at all, and only wears an apparent fake belly. (But not mystify anyody, I consider Abigail Breslin's performance as the best and most sincere in this film and I am happy to praise her for that.)

The rest of the film seems a lot farther from honesty, in my opinion. Even in "Juno" I was distracted by forced plot points just according to the syd-fieldian logic, and LMS might try just a little bit harder than that. If the institute of "an indie film" stands for something in my book, it is distinction and spontaneity, and I don't find any of those here. All the characters (with the exception of the mother and possibly Olive) are endowed with a triple dose of typical weirdo qualities to assure the audience that they couldn't get anyone weirder. The jumps in tone from a lightweight atmosphere to a depression of the worst kind and back are unexpected and illogical. And mainly, all the stupid storybook rules are being followed to a letter instead of being subverted, as one would expect in this kind of film. This all contributes to me seeing the final feel of a re-newed family togetherness as unbelievable and unearned.

But I have to add some plus points for the film go make the depressed teenager colourblind to have a real reason to see the world as ugly and incomplete. And also for these film siblings being nice to each other, getting on well with each other and caring about each other, because I am kind of sick of the stereotypical film siblings rivalry.