Little Miss Sunshine vs God Said Ha

There is sweetness—genuine sweetness—in every frame of Little Miss Sunshine. Sweetness in movies is usually cringe-inducing, but the characters in Little Miss Sunshine are so good, and they’re trying so hard, that I found it impossible not to be moved by even the tiniest of gestures. For example, at one point on a road trip one character sends another into a convenience store for some porn, and tells him to pick up some for himself as well. In the context of the scene, it’s a gesture of generosity, acceptance and family, and it got to me a little. And no, not just because I like porn, which I don’t, which isn’t any of your business anyway.

Little Miss Sunshine is a story of a family in a bus. The clutch is out, and they can only shift from third to fourth, so to get the bus going, they have to get it rolling close to thirty miles an hour first, which means always parking on a hill, or in most cases, everyone pushes and jumps in at the last second. It’s a joke that would be too wacky for me in other hands, and definitely not one I’d care to see played more than once. But in Little Miss Sunshine, that clutch is epic. It means something to this family, and they’re going to get out and push that VW bus as many times as they have to.

After a scandal moves her from runner-up to Little Miss Chili Pepper, seven-year old Olive (Abigail Breslin) gets the opportunity to compete in Little Miss Sunshine, a child beauty contest (if you bristled a bit when you read that, Little Miss Sunshine is a movie for you. ). I think child beauty contests are among the creepiest American activities, and Olive’s family likely does too, but she so dedicated to competing, and well if you knew her you’d see why it’s devastating to see her disappointed. So they load into the bus and go. Besides Olive, we have her father (Greg Kinnear), a motivational speaker who constantly lists the rules for winning and then never does anything but lose; her mother (Toni Collette), the most practical-minded, good-humored and tactful member of the family; her uncle (Steve Carrell), a Proust expert and recent suicide-attempter; her heroin-addicted, dance-coach grandfather (Alan Arkin); and her depressed older brother (Paul Dano), who has recently taken a vow of silence.

I know, they sound a little quirky. A little fake-movie-quirky, like they’ve only got character qualities, and not actual characteristics. You can relax. The characters in Little Miss Sunshine are fully-formed and regard each other as regular families do, taking each other down a couple pegs, but then building one back up once in a while too. The performances are great all around, especially Carrell, who shows up nearly every one of his comedy contemporaries by playing his needy, heartbroken professor with grace and subtlety. He turns the act of retrieving a slushie from a convenience store counter into its own very short film; Carrell finds subtext in everything. And, dude can run. And Paul Dano, as the silent, angry Dwayne, avoids nearly every cliché of this type of role and makes it the true heart of the family, the road trip and the film. Dano has a scene on a hill that stops the movie cold, in the best way.

Little Miss Sunshine was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Farris, who directed the best Smashing Pumpkins videos, and give Little Miss Sunshine just enough realism to balance out the whimsy that pops up once in a while. For example, Olive’s house is the most accurately designed since the set of Roseanne, the costumes are spot-on, and the actors all look and behave like an actual family. On the other hand, well, they sure do a lot of wacky running behind that old VW.

It’s hard to find a movie that embodies the goodness I felt from Little Miss Sunshine without getting sappy. I hate movies that manipulate me into feeling, or that add false sentimentality at the end to sweeten up a darker comedy. If the darkness is true, let’s go there. If the sentiment is genuine, let’s do that too. And so Proof, and Thumbsucker, and In Good Company and Pieces of April, all of which contain families and failures and sweetness both genuine and fake, and all of which I considered recommending today, just aren’t right as a follow-up to Little Miss Sunshine. I think you should watch God Said Ha.

God said what, you ask? God Said Ha is a filmed version of Julia Sweeney’s one-woman show. It’s very simple, just the actress on a stage with a couch, telling the story of her family. Sweeney was a caregiver for her brother, who was dying of cancer, when she found out that she had cancer too. And so, in her mid-thirties, post-SNL, with a dying brother, and a potentially dying self, Sweeney found herself making room in her home for her parents, and well, you can imagine. Like Little Miss Sunshine, God Said Ha is funny, but uses its humor as a way of masking/releasing the pain and anger that so often leave humor in their wake, but really screw up your day when they first surface. Sweeney’s life was a wreck, but she brings it to the stage, and just like little Olive, it’s an unexpected, sometimes awkward pleasure to watch. You might not think cancer, or even Julia Sweeney herself, is much of an opportunity for a night of entertainment. But by the time she tells of begrudgingly appearing as androgynous Pat one last time and waving half-heartedly from a parade float, you’ll be on Sweeney’s side for the duration of her sad, funny autobiography.

Little Miss Sunshine: A
God Said Ha: B