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Friday, August 4, 2006
You can find a ray of 'Sunshine' in the oddest places
The first five minutes of this hilarious and astute satire tell us everything we need to know about the Hoovers, an at-odds family living in discomfit in Albuquerque. In remarkably compact and quietly concise vignettes, we're introduced to each member, and immediately understand what they're all about.
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View all photosRichard (Greg Kinnear) is a motivational speaker -- less the successful kind and more the type who shakes up sorry past-their-primes at the rundown local motel; wife Sheryl (Toni Collette) is a no-nonsense "pro-honesty" mom to teen Dwayne (Paul Dano), who hasn't spoken in nine months and drowns himself in Nietzsche; and 7-year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin), an optimistic and care-taking beauty queen wannabe.
Hovering are Sheryl's Proust expert academic brother Frank (Steve Carell), dumped by his boyfriend and suicidal, and Richard's reprobate dad (Alan Arkin), who peppers every sentence with an expletive and snorts illegal substances in the bathroom.
Despite constant bickering, a steady diet of take-out fried chicken and a huge difference of opinion, the Hoovers agree to drive Olive, who has been granted a berth in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, to Redondo Beach, Calif., in their beat-up VW van. The two-day journey pushes the family to the limits and ultimately defines the difference between being a loser and tasting victory.
Husband-and-wife directing team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris balance the eccentricity and darkly funny, offbeat events with some searching moments but they never linger too long in sentimental territory.
They keep this road movie grounded in its dysfunction and manage to wring the humanity from the extremes.
It's to their -- and the actors' -- credit that they've taken a first-produced screenplay from writer Michael Arndt and made shrill characters sympathetic in their struggles to find their places in an unpredictable, out-of-control world.
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