Little Miss Sunshine

A dysfunctional family consisting of an obnoxious motivational speaker father (Greg Kinnear), his long-suffering wife (Toni Collette), her suicidal Proust scholar brother (Steve Carell), a junkie grandfather (Alan Arkin), a teenage Nitsche-reading misanthrope (Paul Dano) and his 7-year-old little sister (Abigail Breslin) go on a life-altering road trip in this mediocre black comedy. Husband-and-wife director team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris depend on their gifted cast to enrich Michael Arndt’s synthetic script, but the outcome is a watchable-if-pretentious movie with minor laughs. Hyped for garnering the highest price of a film ever sold at Sundance, "Little Miss Sunshine" is the name of the pre-teen beauty pageant that the family drives from their home in Albuquerque, NM to Redondo Beach, CA to enter their youngest progeny in.

Rated R. 99 mins. (C+) (Two Stars)