Celebrate Family!

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
--Leo Tolstoy (first sentence of "Anna Karenina")

“Little Miss Sunshine” is a delight. I’ve seen it twice. It easily could have descended into sitcom cliche. But it is extraordinarily refreshing how real it feels. It also could have slipped into ponderous self-importance, because most of the characters face serious problems and setbacks.

Many eternal family qualities are on vivid display, including untidiness, self-righteousness, sullenness, unwanted advice, amazingly inconvenient car trouble, the presence of a naive child, generational wisdom, a relative who is staying for a while, and unspoken money troubles. What makes the film so interesting and entertaining is that none of these qualities are fussed over--they’re just there, just like in a real family. And they’re there in strange and hilarious ways. Just like in real families.

I’d like to say that anyone who has ever lived with a family will enjoy this film. Yet both times I saw it there were people around me who weren’t laughing, while others were practically rolling in the aisles. Humor is a matter of taste, of course. But maybe some of these people were raised by animals in the jungle. Or maybe the movie hits a little too close to home.