Little Miss Sunshine

Got to this odd Slate article via kottke:

But since it's comedy we're talking about, the overriding critical question would seem to be: Is Little Miss Sunshine funny? I found it pretty funny, funnier by a long shot by than the vast majority of mainstream comedies, and, at the indie-plex screening I attended, a lot of people laughed. Little Miss Sunshine may not be a great film. The dad character is saved from being a malicious caricature only by Kinnear's marvelous performance, and the dance-party climax is pat and saccharine. But why should anyone be so annoyed by a genial comedy that clearly satisfies the genre-requirement that it be funny?

This whole argument is the polar opposite of my reaction to Little Miss Sunshine. I have a huge weakness for the genre -- Flirting With Disaster is one of my all-time favorite comedies, and I thought Garden State was genuinely funny and sweet as well. Yes, LSM was formulaic in its quirkiness (as all genre comedies are.) My problem with it was that it wasn't actually funny. There were a few little chuckles, but barely anything approaching a genuine laugh. There's a point about thirty minutes into it -- once the whole lineup of crazies has been established -- where you think: ah, now it's going to get hilarious. And then it just fizzles.

Comments

[fred wilson]

c'mon, the part where they are stuffing the grandfather's dead body out the window of the hospital had me on the floor gasping for air.

[Julie Gomoll]

For me it was when the horn started going off... I hadn't laughed that hard in a very long time.

[chris Larry]

Hmmm i laughed quite a bit and was touched a few times too....but I agree Flirting With Disastor rules.

[Chuck]

The horn was pretty funny, but the film itself was a mild disappointment in my opinion. Certainly not worthy of being the favorite for Best Picture.

But I think the Slate article is asking an interesting question: why do so many of these quirky indie comedies inspire such strong backlash?

Some of the other articles the Slate article mentions (Flirting with Disaster, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Me and You and Everyone We Know) are actually quite good.

[Steven Johnson]

It's true, the gags with the car -- particularly the horn -- were funny. And the scene stuffing Arkin back into the van was funny too. But even then, it seemed a little weird that one of the funniest gags in this indie comedy was pretty much stolen straight from National Lampoon's Vacation (old relative dies and has to be stuffed into the family vehicle to keep the road trip going.)

My big point, though, is that with all the characters they'd set up -- and with that group of actors -- it was amazing how little they actually delivered comedically, at least when the van wasn't the central source of humor.

[louise crawford]

Steven, I would love for you to be one of the keynote speakers at the second annual Brooklyn Blogfest on May 10th at the Old Stone House. Are you available? It's an amazing gathering of Brooklyn bloggers. We did it last year. Best, Louise (OTBKB) louise_crawford@yahoo.com

[Niall]

The thing that kept me from really enjoying Little Miss Sunshine is that it is basically an unacknowledged remake of National Lampoon's Vacation. Plotwise, the similarities are hard to ignore. This also ruined its indy cred for me. LMS was basically an indie retelling of the most traditional, family affirming kind of movie that Hollywood has churned out for decades.

[Richard Cownie]

What was all the fuss about ? Amusing in parts,
but the targets were obvious, and Arkin's character
died before he got going - he got an Oscar for
that tiny part ? Baffling. And most of all I felt
sorry for the usually-excellent Toni Collette
struggling to find anything to do with her
underwritten stereotype role as the sane mom of a
crazy family.

[G Ghirardi]

It kept my wife awake which is some praise as she sees most visual depictions as posing arguments and has little interest in entertainment as the goal of movies.

And the argument seemed to be that society cannot be reduced down to winners and losers.

Standing in line earlier in my day at the grocery store in Caracas, prior to watching LMS, I listened to a 70 year old man explain to a young man with wife and child of the necessity to ouster socialist president Hugo Chavez and that we needed to except that in this endeavor many will have to die. I don't need to be reminded of what constitutes sanity from a culture so self possessed that it believes that flirting with disaster is a movie genre.