As a general principle I tend to stay away from movies that are Oscar bids. They always tend to disappoint, I’ve found, because only one of two things can happen:

a. The actors get so desperate for the award that they overact, putting so much useless drama that it ruins the film (i.e. anything Tom Cruise had done in the past few years)

b. The directors themselves ruin the film by making all sorts of overly complicated angles as “independent” as possible, using pointless intricacies to make a relatively simple plot seem “artful” (i.e. films such as Cold Mountain)

But once in a while, directors and actors get it right. Somehow, the right cosmic forces aligned just enough to produce the perfect balance for the production of that good movie that’s directed artfully and cast with actors that give the characters justice. 

One such example of an Oscar Bid is Little Miss Sunshine, a baby by husband-wife music video director tandem of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. I guess it is a point for them that they’re music video directors; they know how to make a point, make it short and still interesting. They have a really firm grasp of the all-American family to portray it this way: a little bit of that wackiness the Simpsons possess but still grounded enough to be realistic.

The story’s not really that unique, just that messed up American family out on a road trip. But the way the characters were written, you’ll stay glued to your seat until the credits roll. They just have a way of pulling you into the screen, the characters totally relatable, for some weird reason. 

You’ll find a little bit of yourself in Greg Kinnear’s Richard Hoover, striving not to be a hypocrite, because if he takes the easy way out, he’d be breaking his own rules, the ones he’s desperately trying to get everybody else to live by. Greg Kinnear’s always been a favorite actor of mine because he never disappoints. Even when playing the most ridiculous of characters, he gives it everything he’s got, totally immersing himself and being the character. This one’s no exception; he’s a believable father, you get glimpses of your own in his Richard Hoover. You get that same pangs of hate when his character pushes his kids but get this sense of understanding that he only wants the best for his family. 

You’ll definitely see your own mother in Toni Collette’s Sheryl Hoover, wife to Richard who keeps it all together even though shit after shit flies at them with unbelievable force. She’s the modern woman straining to live with the demands of being a working mother. There’s even this instance in the movie when she’s asked to do steal a dead body from a hospital bed and you just know she’d never do it because it’s against every moral fiber in her body, but she does it, because her family needed her to do it. You see how her character’s not really a super mom, but still trying to pretend to be one, when she lies about smoking to her husband.

And Steve Carell’s Frank, Sheryl’s gay Proust scholar of a brother, was probably his best role up to date. This guy has serious acting chops; unfortunately he’s stuck doing comedies for the masses. But I guess he’s still meant to be a comedian, after all, he brings out this dark humor to Frank, who stays with the Hoover family after a botched up attempt at suicide. There he feels alive and learns that even though he’s practically lost everything in his career as a Proust scholar, his family will never hold it against him. 

Paul Dano plays Dwane Hoover, a Nietzsche reading teenager who’s taken a vow of silence until the day he can get into a flight school and leave his family, who, as all teenagers do, he hates. Paul Dano first caught my eye when he played the young Ethan Hawke in the movie Taking Lives and then more recently, as one of the best friends in The Girl Next Door. He’s an actor who, for some reason, has never actually been picked up for more roles in Hollywood. He’s made Dwane an interesting character, not an easy feat, considering the fact that he’s probably just said twenty lines in the whole movie. 

The little sister, Olive, was played by Abigail Breslin, now shot to fame because of this movie. She’s fulfilled all requirements of a child actress – innocence and crying abilities. Not to say that she’s not a good actress; it’s actually quite surprising to see this little girl keep up with the acting chops of all actors surrounding her. There’s this scene in the movie that Olive finds out that she can actually compete for the ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ pageant and she screams so loudly that you actually feel happy for her. The opening credits of the movie show Olive watching the winner of a beauty contest wave to screen and through the lens of her old-school glasses, you see the pure want in her eyes to be in the same position.

And then there’s the small but very significant role of Alan Arkin as Edwin, Richard’s heroin addicted, home for the aged expellee father. He basically is the potty mouth in the movie, shooting off the F-word every few words or so. He’s also Olive’s stage grandfather (who knew they existed?) and trains her for the Little Miss Sunshine competition. Aside from giving grandfatherly advice to Dwane (“Christ! What are you? 15? My God man! You gotta be gettin’ that young stuff! The young stuff is the best stuff in the world. You seem you’re jail bait, their jail bait. It’s perfect. You turn eighteen and you’re looking at three to five.”), you also see a glimpse of how much he cares for his son when something that Richard had put all of his eggs in fails to push through. In a simple act of patting his son’s shoulder, we were spared from hearing at least half a dozen pages of why and how much he loves his son exactly.

All in all it’s a great story, acted out well and directed by good directors. In the words of a Project Runway judge, “it didn’t look cheap”, considering their budget of only eight million dollars. I give this movie a 4.8 out of five and I highly recommend you to see it (if you haven’t already) but I dissuade you from buying a Volkswagen T2 Microbus, lest you wish to suffer the same fate this family did. But then again maybe that’s an adventure every family needs.