Albert Berger & Ron Yerxa, Marc Turtletaub, David T. Friendly, Peter Saraf

 

Just when it seems the dysfunctional family film has run out of gas, along comes a film like Little Miss Sunshine to reinvigorate the form. The Hoover family has fallen on some hard times. Dad’s a motivational speaker who tries a little too hard; his son Frank has taken a vow of silence; and Grandpa just got kicked out of his nursing home. When seven-year-old Olive qualifies for a beauty pageant, circumstances dictate that the entire family — mom, dad, big brother, grandpa and a despondent uncle — all make the drive from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach in a beat-up VW bus.

This half-melancholy, half-hilarious road trip marks the feature directing debut of the veteran music video team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who have a predictably crisp sense of pacing, a keen eye for production detail and a lovely sensitivity to character and performance. The truly exceptional cast — Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin, Steve Carell and Abigail Breslin — are all marvelous, faithfully hanging with the story as it veers from pathos to broad comedy and back again. Little Miss Sunshine may start out as an acerbic portrait of dysfunction and desperation, but it all builds to a finale so exuberant and all-embracing that you may find yourself fighting the urge to hug the person next to you, whether they’re family or not.