Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Fox Searchlight Pictures presents a Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris film, starring Greg Kinnear and Steve Carrell. Written by Michael Amdt. 101 min. R for language, some sex and drug content.

4.5 stars

Watching “Little Miss Sunshine” unfold is a bit like staring too carefully at that family portrait hanging over the mantelpiece.

At first glace, we’ll likely see what we’ve patterned ourselves to see: an idyllic representation of the nuclear family in the 21st century. The closer we get, however, the more we’re certain to notice that dad’s eyes show as much fear as happiness and that mom’s brother has a smile that’s painted on. And is that really powdered heroin underneath grandpa’s right nostril?

This is the portrait of the Hoover family, circa the month in which prosperity was usurped by pitfall for the charmingly dysfunctional sextet. The film opens as Sheryl (Toni Collette) is rescuing her brother Frank (Steve Carrell) from a hospital psych ward after a botched suicide attempt.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she says, careful to inspect his fresh bandages with furtive glances.

“That makes one of us,” he sullenly replies.

This dark humor is the product of first-time screenwriter Michael Arndt, who deftly finds a balance between each sobering insight and the corresponding one-liner nipping at its heels. “Little Miss Sunshine” also marks the feature film debuts of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, both veteran music video directors, who know enough to let Arndt’s script speak loudest.

Frank is returned home, to endless nights of bucket chicken and dismal dinner conversation with Sheryl’s plumpish 7-year-old daughter, Olive (Abigail Breslin); taciturn teenage son, Dwayne (Paul Dano); ambitious husband Richard (Greg Kinnear) and acrimonious father-in-law (Alan Arkin).

Their torporific existence, evidenced by the 1970s décor that still engulfs their Albuquerque ranch house, is rattled by word that Olive has qualified for this year’s Little Miss Sunshine pageant in Redondo Beach.

With little foresight of the trip’s multitudinous complications, the family crams into their sole source of mass transportation, an antique Yolkswagen bus, for the interstate expedition. The friction felt around the dinner table resumes immediately in the tight confines of the canary yellow cruiser, as past disgusts and present disappointments are rehashed by family members to spite one another.

If there wasn’t a generous dose of levity to all this sniping, however, “Little Miss Sunshine” could feel more confrontational that it intends. But Arndt transforms the usual road trip problems – like each compounding car malfunction - into some of the film’s most memorable scenes.

Although the precocious pageant princess may not feel it, Olive will begin shouldering the crushing weight of her family’s expectations. After all, they all are historically losers, who dream earnestly but always fail. Richard peddles a nine-step self-improvement nostrum that only allows for winners, a group in which he has never been included. His condescension germinates from losing control, as he contemplates a future that finds him more a leech than a breadwinner.

In order to legitimize his self-help gobbledygook, Richard must vilify Frank for quitting early on his life. There’s little point, since the county’s now second foremost Proust scholar feels there’s no hope of returning to the top, no matter how insignificant we understand that denotation to be. Even Dwayne dreams big, self-administering a vow of silence until he can shake off the dust of his crummy little town and attend flight school.

With big round glasses that swallow her face and baby fat that peeks out of her tube top, Olive isn’t typical pageant material. That couldn’t be any clearer than it is this week, when the glossy cheesecake photos of JonBenét Ramsey once again graced tabloid covers. These stills were a terrifying reminder of how easily zealous parents can turn 6-year-olds into pint-size copies of beauty queens, complete with teased hair, a sprayed-on tan and generous slabs of makeup.

When it’s all said and done, the loser Hoovers may have the last laugh at the pageant’s “win at all costs” philosophy. But after the laughter quiets, we can’t help but feel as we did at the conclusion of “The Graduate,” another film that stuck a thumb in the eye of convention and expectation: Oh my, where do we go from here?