Movie Review: Little Miss Sunshine

I haven't done movie reviews for quite a while now. Usually, I only do when a movie strikes me deep that I couldn't NOT write about it somehow.

Little Miss Sunshine is about a dysfunctional and bankrupted family whose members suffer insanely bizarre issues of their own. Their lives intertwine in various unexpected ways, regardless of denying each other's existence, and finally doing things as a team. Well, they might seem just like any other family... But not quite.

It all starts when a family takes a road trip together to send a little girl to a beauty pageant. The family consists of 6: a mother/wife who tries so hard to bring the family together, practically leading a life of fast food deliveries and chain-smoking; a father/husband who dreams of gaining fame and fortune by bringing his theories on self-help and self-improvement technique to the public using 9 steps to reach success; a suicidal gay brother who is an expert on Proust; a heroin-addict grandfather who always speaks his mind, no matter how unwholesome he may seem; a goth of a teenage son who has voluntarily deprived himself of speech; and a 7-year old daughter who dreams of winning the Little Miss Sunshine title.

What struck me the most was that on winners and losers. The father insists that losing is simply not winning, not getting the top prize, so one needs to do everything he/she can to get it. The grandfather later negates this idea by stating that losing only happens when one doesn't try at all. The 7-year old child somehow gets this and walks proudly into the pageant, not thinking about winning or losing anymore, but simply doing her best and enjoying herself as she witnesses the support of her whole family (i loooooooooved the talent portion! i was laughing the whole time!).

This movie reminds us of the importance of family. That no matter how weird each member is, we are bound to accept, support and love one another in the end. That home is where we first discover and develop our own individualities, and at the same time, where we experience our first actual relationship with another human being that covers all aspects of life.

Go see the movie. You won't regret it ;-)