Little Miss Sunshine (2006) - LightShed 10

Excellent movie.  Just brilliant.  This is one of the most entertaining movies I saw this year.

In Little Miss Sunshine, we see a family of crazy people trying to get their little girl to a beauty pageant.  You will laugh hard.

We have Steve Carell as a gay professor who is depressed and had tried to commit suicide.  A grandpa, played by Alan Arkin, who snorts heroin.  A father, played by Greg Kinnear, who wants to be a success guru.  He's a loser, of course. 

Toni Collete plays a mom who tries to keep it together, Paul Dano is a teenager who vowed not to speak until he is admitted to the Air Force, and, finally, we have our beauty queen, played by Abigail Breslin.

Every single one of them is superb.  Even Greg Kinnear, whom I thought was a little limited, did well.

I knew that Steve Carell played a gay character here, but I was surprised with the amount of attention given to the matter -- it was all over the movie.  Very very nice.

When I first saw the trailer (watch it below), I was a little concerned that our gay would be the only screwed up one, who have attempted suicide and had an affair at work (kind of unethical, right?) and that he would be portrayed in a bad light.   

The scene you see in the trailer occurs very early in the movie and you think that grandpa Alan Arkin and the little girl would sort of be on the homophobic side.  In the trailer, grandpa says that there is another word for a guy falling in love with another guy, and, by his derogatory tone, I would be pretty sure the word grandpa is thinking of is not gay, it would be something along the lines of "faggot."  And the little girl, well, she is just a little girl, but it would have been nicer to hear something better than: "that's silly" as her reaction to a situation involving love and two men. 

But going into the movie, I think you would understand why I awarded a LightShed 10 to Little Miss Sunshine. I will discuss how Steve Carell's sexuality was portrayed in the movie but that will give away a bit too much of the plot.  I will not at all reveal the ending, but if you are like me and like to go into the movies without knowing a whole lot, stop reading here and be ready to run to the theaters on July 26, 2006, when this movie opens (that's a Wednesday  -- weird, right? The info is from the official web site).  Watch the trailer:

[SORT OF SPOILER AHEAD]

So, the grandpa, who seemed to be a bit of a homophobe (from his comment which you just saw in the trailer), ends up not being so bad.  In one scene, the family stops at a gas station and grandpa Arkin asks Steve Carell to go get some hard-core erotic magazines, and he says that Carell can also get a "fag rag" for himself.  That was nice.  Gays like porn too.  Alan Arkin mentions Steve's homosexuality in a neutral light a few other times in the movie.

When Steve is out getting the porn magazines, he bumps into the object of his affection (played by Justin Shilton -- pic on the right), who is then dating another professor, also a Proust scholar.  The encounter was a little far-fetched actually, too much of a coincidence for the two gays to meet right in the middle of nowhere.  Anyway, they talk a little bit but Justin kinda gives up on his conversation with Steve when he realizes Steve is buying straight porn -- then, we see Justin leaving on a Jaguar with his successful new boyfriend.  We are not sure whether the other Proust scholar was also Justin's professor -- that would be bad (like, all gay profs will have an affair with their gay students).

Later on, Alan Arkin dies (remember he did heroin?).  In order to get to the beauty pageant on time, the family cannot deal with hospital formalities, so, they put the corpse into the trunk of the bus they are using to drive to the pageant.  All of a sudden, the bus starts honking and won't stop and a cop pulls them over.  Greg Kinnear is driving.  When the cop is inspecting the bus, he sees a bunch of XXX magazines (the ones Steve Carell had bought for Alan Arkin).  While flipping through the magazines, the cop gets somewhat puzzled by the gay porn he finds amongst the naked women magazines, and Greg Kinnear just nods like "you know, I like that too."  That gives us a bit of fake bisexual content, right?  A guy with straight and gay porn.  With no judgment, the cop takes the straight porn and leaves the gay magazine for Greg.  The cop lets them go,  not realizing they are carrying a dead body.

The teenager, Paul Dano, has a great relationship with Steve Carell.  Steve sleeps in nephew Paul Dano's bedroom (Dano is supposed to help prevent his uncle from attempting another suicide).  Paul kinda opens up to Steve...all super sweet.  By the end, Steve is having a great life-affirming conversation with Paul Dano.  And Steve, being a big Proust scholar, tries to explain to Paul that even though Proust was "a loser and gay."  Proust thought that it was in the suffering that he learned and grew the most.  It's really a beautiful scene and a beautiful message, but the way in which Steve mentioned Proust's problems implies that Steve, a gay men himself, equated gayness with being a loser and a bunch of other crap.  So this was a bit bad, but I still loved the light for the gays in the movie.

As a I mentioned above, every single one in the family is totally screwed up and it is pretty clear that Steve Carell is also screwed up but that his problem has nothing to do with his being gay per se, it has to do with life in general, and, perhaps, with his whole family being fucked up as well.  Not once it is said that being gay is wrong or immoral (well, except perhaps for the damn scene in the trailer). 

In summary, the negative bits in the portrayal of gays here do not take away from the fact that his family loves him, and Steve is, after all, a great guy, with problems like everybody else.

Comments

[marcus]

Owwwwwww
I saw the movie last night..
The little girl is so cute!
It's only me or u had some times that u wanted to cry too?
Nice nice nice movie!

[Alfred]

I watched it last night and witnessed for myself everything u mentioned above. The family is fun and it sort of reflects some families where they didn't know that they could be fun and also so supportive of each other. Naturally it only shows during grave times.

And oh-my-god those young beauty FAKE-tanned queens. Olive is the best, even the name. The grandpa totally outdid my imagination - I thought it was his song choice that'd b bizarre.

I hv to say thing as it bothered me the most - Greg's shirt on the first day of the trip was the most hideous shirt I had ever seen. Hahaha

The movie isn't about Steve alone - anyone could be in his shoes, which makes the movie very believable. Some are a little more homophobe than others too.

Anyway it's a good movie

[Marcus]

Ok Ok!
I stopped reading!
I want to watch this movie!

[Queer Beacon]

It's between a Professor (Carell) and a student.

I don't really have a problem with affairs between colleagues...Bring them on.

[Ricardo]

«... A gay professor had an afair at work», which is unethical?!
If it's at work, it's between colleagues, right? Adults, right? Both free, right? No student seduced, right? So?...
Or is it over there morally condemnable to have an affair at work? Period.
Well, not at all on this side of the Atlantic. Thanks God!