"Life is just one beauty contest after another". Continually trying to impress, continually being judged.
Well, in America at least. And Little Miss Sunshine works well as a parody of the nation's stereotypes. There’s the father obsessed with life’s ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ who tours a lecture of his ‘9 steps to success’. There’s the heroin-snorting nymphomaniac Grandpa, who although maybe not a stereotype himself, serves his satirical purpose. "Fuck as many women as you can kid" he tells his grandson "before it’s too late". The grandson in question is the angst-ridden, Nietszche-reading spoilt brat, who comes to his senses in perhaps the film’s most poignant scene, when his uncle (a suicidal, gay Proust scholar) convinces him that suffering is the most enjoyable part of life. Or, as the teenager translates it, "do what you enjoy, and fuck the rest". And of course there are countless pre-teen beauty queens, the apotheosis of everything that is hateful about America.
As a comedy, the film works less well. It’s too busy, too ‘wacky’. There’s no need for the farcical plot twists and turns, the constant buffoonery and slapstick episodes. It works best when relying on sharp, understated dialogue and the performances of the incredible cast (a ‘Who’s Who’ of indie actors we’ve got used to seeing in the mainstream). The young girl, too, is remarkable.
The message of the film is simple: Fuck Beauty Contests. And it’s pretty much drilled into us by the end. But it’s an important point and an enjoyable denunciation of an American obsession.
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