What pleasure can be gained from such a small, seemingly insignificant dysfunctional family?
A lot. I know that Little Miss Sunshine has radiated a rapturous entrance into our lives, but I have only just had the opportunity to be exposed to the eternal rays of Little Miss S. I enjoyed it so much, I had to re-watch it three times this weekend.
Waiting to know what Olive will perform in the contest is justly satisfied from the very first beats of 'Super Freak'. A kid - the least conventionally good-looking kid of the beauty pageant line-up, stripping! It's wrong, but so right at the same time. You can see the spirit of grandpa sparkling in Olive's spectacles - she's one happy little gal. But when you watch for the second time, you think - why didn't I think of that before, of course he'd have taught her something saucy. He's a womanizer, from the start, he's telling his grandson to go get some, why not teach your granddaughter a few soft porn moves to carry on the tradition?
And when the whole family get up on stage and start flailing their limbs around, I could feel my cheeks tightening to the point of no return. Tiny, hot tears of joy sat plump at the corners of my eyes and as the family got back on the road home, I preyed that the blackened screen would open up again for another instalment.
I love the desperate dynamics of the family, how they manage to upset each other - just by looking a certain way, or saying one word out of place. But the premise of the pageant brings them colliding together, apples, pears, and queers. The yellow bus - a symbol of hope, but also (ironically) a burden and menace throughout. It beeps uncontrollably at the most inappropriate times, the clutch won't shift - but these things help entwine the family, in a way nothing else could have.
Each character is wrestling with a personal demon, and little by little, each demon is exhumed. I read somewhere in Creative Screenwriting magazine that the producer and writer of LMS were worried that the story was too small for Hollywood. I think the cast and strong characterisation make for a mammoth story, laden with trials and self-enlightenment. Sure, the scale is small, the budget is small, but small is not a compromise here.
Long live Olive, long live dysfunctional families and long live small tales big on sunshine.
