movie review - Little Miss Sunshine
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Tokyo, 2008.09.05
This is an excellent movie about a family that decides to take their young daughter to a beauty contest in California. They pack up their three kids, the wife's despondent brother, and the husband's father. Along the way, we see the characters interact in often unpredictable ways. All of the characters bring some heavy baggage on the trip: a recent attempted suicide, a failed career, a heroin habit... Needless to say, a bunch of stuff doesn't work out as expected and the family is remarkably changed by the end but also unchanged. This movie is very well written, well directed, superbly cast, and just about perfect. I was expecting good things but not this!
Strongly recommended. A favorite.