PLOT: A VERY dysfunctional family from Albuquerque embark on the roadtrip from hell in order to get their seven-year-old daughter (Abigail Breslin) to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in California.
What appears, on the surface, to be yet another a family road movie will have you laughing out loud often and quite possibly applauding at the very end as the credits roll.
At least that's what happened at the promo screening of Little Miss Sunshine last week, where audience members seemingly couldn't get enough of the life-challenged Hoovers from Albuquerque.
Sheryl and Richard Hoover, played by Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette, are at a crossroads in their marriage as he can't get his nine-step motivational program off the ground and she's bringing home what little bacon there is.
Meanwhile, Richard's porn-loving, heroin-snorting father, hilariously portrayed by scene-stealer Alan Arkin in a rebel black leather vest, has been kicked out of his nursing home for obvious reasons and hasn't kicked any of his bad habits, despite the presence of children.
The children are Olive Hoover, played by the delightful Abigail Breslin, a slightly plump, glasses-wearing, beauty contest-obsessed seven-year-old, and her older brother Dwyane (Paul Dano), a Nietzsche-worshipper who has taken a vow of silence until he's admitted to the U.S. Air Force Academy to become a pilot.
Dwayne scrawls on a piece of paper to his Uncle Frank, (Steve Carell), a gay Proust scholar whose failed suicide attempt has brought him to the Hoover household: "Welcome to Hell."
As you may have guessed by now, these characters have little basis in reality, and once you get over that fact, you can just sit back and enjoy the ride in their broken down VW van, which gets as much screen time as the Hoovers themselves in this ensemble piece.
The family is on a mission to get Olive to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in Redondo Beach, Calif., and over the course of three days, they meet with both tragedy and comedy in the blackest sense.
Let's just say, they put "the fun" in dysfunctional and the outrageous beauty pageant finale is well worth the wait.
Directors and husband-and-wife-team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, best known as music video and commercial directors, make their feature film debut here with a sure hand and provide some groovy, eclectic music in the background.
There's also a very funny script written by first-time screenwriter Michael Arndt.
But it is the performances of both the wide-eyed Breslin (Signs) and the foul-mouthed Arkin, who hasn't been this humourous in years, that you'll be talking about when you leave the theatre.
Carell is also very good as the sad-sack uncle who eventually gets his fighting spirit back while Dano captures angry teen angst perfectly in that pale-faced, black haired kind of way.
BOTTOM LINE: The fresh and funny performances of newcomer Abigail Breslin and veteran Alan Arkin lift this offbeat family road movie above the usual fare in this genre. And you'll never be able to think of Rick James' Superfreak the same way again, trust me.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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