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By: Rude Law
Date: 8th Nov 07
Format: Cinema
Mood: Whimsical
What:
Little Miss Sunshine
Where:
Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon St, Carlton and other select cinemas
Watch the trailer:
here
With a cast of characters initially tied together only by the family unit and their own fallibility,Little Miss Sunshine is a road trip film of a different nature. A smoking mother, an overly aspirational father, a drug-addict grandfather, a suicidal uncle and amute son are in stark contrast the youngest daughter whose dreams of becoming a beauty queen are wonderfully misplaced.
The somewhat nihilist Little Miss Sunshine fits into the distinct breed of American cinema that mixes themes of self-help, dysfunctional families, death and philosophy. There was the destructionist Donnie Darko, the existential/anarchic I Heart Huckabees and the humanist Garden State.These films, tied together by the absurd and the hyper-real, are led primarily by their self-deprecating sense of humour, which makes them both honest and refreshing in a movie industry that churns out mediocre blockbusters and oh-so-political melodramas.
Little Miss Sunshine may be predictably uplifting but this still makes a nice change from predictably mundane.