2006, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Dir. Jonathan Dayton/Valerie Faris - Starring Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston, Beth Grant, Justin Shilton, Gordon Thomson, Paula Newsome, Dean Norris, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Erik David

‘Little Miss Sunshine’ is officially taglined, “a family on the verge of a breakdown”. And how true this is. Directors (and married couple) Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris - of music video fame - has pieced together a flawless cast, a pristine story, and a heaping bowl of dark humor to make it one of the year’s most enjoyable comedies. This is not your average movie - it can swerve off and on the path from time to time, but never loses its sparkle. It’s a movie that naive people will automatically label as ‘indie’, but don’t let its dusty one-shot camera appearance fool you.The script is riddled with realistic characters and their quirks, but you love them, no matter how much they tend to fight with one another. And throughout this whirlwind of a comedy, you’re bound to laugh it up or tear up on occasion. Everybody has flaws, and ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ are just words in life’s dictionary - but Dayton and Faris argue real beauty and love through this mixed-up group of people. You may not understand why they do what they do, but once the credits roll you understand how they function. ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ is fantastic, an uproarious celebration of family, friends, and life - profound, but you’re going to laugh till your belly aches.

The Hoovers of Albuquerque aren’t your regular family. The clan consists of: husband Richard (Kinnear), a failed motivational speaker, wife Cheryl (Collette), a former divorcee with an addiction to cigarettes, her first son Dwayne (Dano) who has stopped speaking thanks to the nihilist philosophies of Frederich Nietzsche, and their daughter Olive (Breslin), a chipper young girl with big dreams of beauty pageants. Living in their little house with them is Richard’s father (Arkin), whose heroine addiction does nothing to help his already obnoxious and hedonistic ways - despite his being a role model for young Olive. Cheryl’s gay brother Frank (Carell) has just moved in with the family for the time being, having nearly killed himself after his lover fell for someone else. Herein lays the foundation of ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ - a dysfunctional group of people with faults and tics that end up connecting through one big trip. This trip is to Redondo Beach, California, when Olive has replaced the original contestant for the aptly-named ‘Sunshine’ beauty pageant. So the group treks out on a day-long trip to southern California to fulfill Olive’s dreams, hoping to secure their own, and learning about being together as a family.

What a cast! Not in a long time have I seen such a bright, diverse group of characters to associate with. Greg Kinnear leads with the elitist Richard Hoover, a soft-spoken but aggressively advising father. He argues against the dangers of eating ice cream, sarcasm, and other bits of wisdom that are pulled directly from his failed ‘9-Steps Plan’. Imagine Tony Robbins on the brink of insanity: a ecstatic figure with a family of deadbeats (that can be argued, though.) Toni Collette is lovely as the caring, respectful Cheryl. She serves as the brains and heart of the family, a good balance to Kinnear’s Richard. Steve Carell plays it straight (or not so straight) with the character of Frank, relying less on physical action and rather through acerbic dialogue and facial expressions - his presence is a delight for everyone in the audience, and doesn’t let down. Paul Dano, who plays Dwayne, exhibits talent through his taciturn role - a silent, but deadly hilarious, figure stuck in the middle of a bickering clan. Through his one-tone facial expressions and handy notepad, Dano shows he is an unconventional actor with plenty of skills. Alan Arkin steals the scene with every moment he inhabits it, with his vicious conversation about sex and aging. The young Abigail Breslin also proves to be a fantastic young actress, brandishing her cuteness while maintaining good veneer for a child performer. She takes the cake with her finale act, delivering some great laughs.

Darker themes are dabbled with in ‘Sunshine’, which oddly enough contribute much to the story. Grandfather’s addiction to snorting heroine and Frank’s suicidal behavior are just a few, but the family tragedies that take place during the film add to the mood. Life gives you some bad lemons on occasion, and directors Faris and Dayton are damned to give some of the best lemonade to their audiences. When things fall down and people are hurt, they can be remedied. Rather than writing them off as personal faults, the family comes together as one and tries to fix them. That’s what makes ‘Sunshine’ such a great movie. It never lets down when it comes to cranking realism out of such an unrealistic group of people. Imagine living with the Addams Family - could you really wake up with the help of a dismembered hand? Dayton and Faris enjoy their feckless subjects, but never leave them in the same mess they were in. By the end of the movie, you love hanging out with them - they made you laugh, cry, and realize that we’re all different people in a mixed-up, glamorous world. Slapstick is apparent in cases, piquant dialogue pervades the screen till the end, and the finale is just perfect. Like ‘Clerks II’, ‘Sunshine’ has a foul mouth but a clean heart - two comedies with great (and sentimental) results.

Sweet and sour, ‘Sunshine’ is one of the year’s funniest films. Moreover, it is a multi-dimensional project, dealing with the pressures of fame and family at once. Dayton and Faris are skilled directors, and have showed their guns at the silver screen. If they can top this, I’ll be wearing bells at the premiere.