Review: 'Little Miss Sunshine' Is Bright Comedy

'Little Miss Sunshine' (R) (out of four)

Here's a comedy that generated a lot of buzz with audiences at the Sundance Film Festival and justifiably so. "Little Miss Sunshine" takes a dysfunctional family (and what family, to some degree, isn't?) and gets the audience to wholeheartedly root for it.

The title refers to a young girls' beauty pageant, which 7-year-old Olive Hoover (played by Abigail Breslin of "Signs") desperately wants to compete in. The youngster practices by playing a tape of the Miss America competition over and over, imitating the moves of the winner. Olive was the runner-up in the regional competition of "Little Miss Sunshine," but gets a 2nd chance when the winner is disqualified. "Something about diet pills" is the reason given, but delivered in a hilariously off-hand way.

The rest of her family is dealing with their own concerns. Dad Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a wannabe Tony Robbins, desperately hanging on to his dream of selling his 9-step motivational system. Wife Sheryl (Toni Collette) is coping with all kinds of challenges.

There's her teenage son (Paul Dano) who has chosen to stop speaking, her very uninhibited father-in-law (Alan Arkin) who advises his grandson to sleep with as many women as possible, and a suicidal brother (wonderfully played by Steve Carrell in an understated performance).

The entire group decides to make the road trip to the pageant, jumping into an old VW bus for a very memorable journey from Albuquerque to Southern California. Along the way they must contend with broken transmissions, broken promises and broken dreams.

The magic of this film is how the various characters, none of whom are very likeble at first, slowly endear themselves to the audience. There's a wonderful scene in which the dad advises his daughter not to eat ice cream because it will make her fat. He keeps telling her to be a "winner, not a loser."

As she sadly passes on the dessert, the rest of the outraged family responds by rallying around her, and making the idea of not eating the ice cream a joy that's impossible to resist. Kinnear's character makes his own turn later on, when faced with a heartbreaking disappointment, he's comforted by his gruff dad in a wonderfully touching scene.

These road warriors finally make it to the prepubescent beauty pageant, which is portrayed in all its bizarre glory. There's a creepy emcee, and little girls who are dressed and made-up to look like garish adult women. The scenes are like an unfolding car crash -- one can't look away. Make sure you pay close attention to the little details in this film, so you don't miss nice touches, such as one contestant whose name is announced as "Charisma Whitman."

"Little Miss Sunshine" is the first produced screenplay from writer Michael Arndt and is directed by the husband-and-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who are best known for directing music videos for such artists as Janet Jackson and R.E.M. They have joined together to make a low-budget comedy, which features a lot of heart, a lot of laughs and some very touching, feel-good moments.