Little Miss Sunshine

4 (out of 4) This film is not perfect. The language is crass, some situations are unbelievable, and the ending feels contrived and just sort of off.

That said - you must see this movie.

I’m not sure where to start. The acting in this movie was nothing short of stellar. Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, and Alan Arkin all deliver excellent standout performances. Well, they would be standout performances in any another film. In Little Miss Sunshine they are over-shadowed first by the super-cute Abigail Breslin who delivers an incredibly believable performance as young Olive and second by Steve Carell as a broken man who has just failed an attempt of suicide.

But even these are out-done by what I consider to be the best performance of 2006 - Paul Dano as a rebellious teen who’s taken a vow of silence until he achieves his goal of becoming an Air Force pilot. His impassioned performance in a particular “breakdown” scene is so real and so heart-wrenching I just broke for his character. I think I successfully hid it from my girlfriend who was watching the movie with me, but I do believe that I may have let a teeny tiny tear escape my eye.

The writing is superb with and laced such simple subtleties and humor that you don’t even stop to think because you’re so engaged. Match that up with a phenomenal sound track and you have one stellar film to cap off 2006.

Little Miss Sunshine is simply a gem that you cannot miss.

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On a side note, the thing that sucks about Little Miss Sunshine is, usually when i see a great movie like this, I’m able to write down some names of people to keep an eye on. American Beauty gave me Sam Mendes (director) and Thomas Newman (composer), Adaptation gave me Charlie Kaufman (writer), Memento gave me Christopher Nolan (writer, director), Donnie Darko gave me Jake & Maggie Gyllenhaal (actor/actress). Little Miss Sunshine is such a masterpiece of the entire cast & crew that I don’t really have a super-star to follow.