Sunshine From Misery (Leitch)
Elisabeth Leitch
Little Miss Sunshine pretty much touches on every major variety of misery.
The trials of losing ability, fighting for respect, and seeking purpose in old age—as in the uncensored Grandpa Hoover who still likes the ladies and just got kicked out of the nursing home for snorting heroin.
The challenge of being a successful husband, father, and man—as in the nails-on-the-chalkboard motivational speaker Richard Hoover who cannot even use his success strategies to gain a voluntary clientele of much more than five.
The misery of unfulfilled love and trumped ambitions—as in the acclaimed Proust scholar, Uncle/ Brother Frank, who has just attempted suicide after watching his archrival claim both the love of his life and premier recognition in his lifelong field of study.
The angst and hopelessness of youth—as in the Nietzsche worshiping, Air Force bound Dwayne who suffers through the daily existence of having to live in the same world as his family and has chosen not to speak in over nine months.
The harried life of a hard-working wife and mother—as in the well-meaning Sheryl Hoover who is just trying to keep her ever expanding household sane and together, even if it means the only thing she has energy to put on the table at night is another bucket of fried chicken.
And then, there’s Olive…
For a young girl, she is just as awkward as the rest of her family. She has huge glasses. She probably is not the most popular girl in school. But in a family filled with people who don’t quite fit in to the world they are trying to live in, she is their ray of sunshine.
While the rest of her family may have consigned themselves to thwarted ambitions and unfulfilled dreams, Olive is determined to go to California and win the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant…and so, packing her family and all of their miseries into a VW bus, she takes everyone along for a ride that will show them that obstacles do not mean we will not reach our destination, that alternative routes and detours are not equivalent to wrong turns and dead ends, and that final destinations need not look like everyone else’s to be worth just as much.
From beginning to end, Little Miss Sunshine is a hilarious and touching tale of misfits, obstacles, and bizarre situations that reminds us that purpose, value, and success are never confined to normality.Witty lines and bizarre turns keep us laughing and remind us that things are never really as bad as they seem. With very little plot, its characters and the actors that play them carry the movie in a way that only punches up its humor and its inspiration. And, in the same way that Olive gets her entire family out of their misery and up dancing, Little Miss Sunshine leaves you smiling and chuckling in a way that makes your day feel just that little bit brighter.
Sometimes it may be hard to believe in hope. As Dwayne’s bright yellow “Jesus Was Wrong” shirt tells us, it often feels impossible to believe in anything beyond the things, abilities, and circumstances that have already let us down…but then, even after the worst detours and road trips imaginable, life goes on, past our failures, towards something new, and with the knowledge that we are never alone in this crazy life that we lead.
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