Little Miss Sunshine - 9 stars out of 10

Little Miss Sunshine - 9 stars out of 10

"Little Miss Sunshine" is a fun and funny portrayal of the stereotypical dysfunctional family.  Its ensemble cast perfectly exaggerates the dynamically different personalities of their characters into organized chaos.  Its Oscar for Best Original Screenplay is well deserved as it pits the quirks of each character against the others.  The ludicrous plot helps as well.  It is so over-the-top and yet, entirely believable with this crew.  The highlights for me include Abigail Breslin, netting a very young Oscar nomination for her refined portrayal of the main character, Steve Carell for bringing so much dark humor to his suicide-watch depressed character, and Paul Dano for the contrast between his stoic vow of silence until his profanity-laden freak-out toward the end.  Alan Arkin is also impressive in this Oscar-winner performance, but actually gets overshadowed by other performances that are more over-the-top.  Anything is possible and nothing can be anticipated from the minute that the Volkswagen bus gets started (with lots of manpower) to Breslin's beauty pageant performance; however, you can certainly expect to be entertained, (mildly) offended, and impressed by this ensemble cast until the credits roll.