Little Miss Sunshine

Hands down my favorite film of the year.

So, given that I had my first day off in twelve days, I had the luxury of seeing a movie that I viewed with great anticipation. So, Kevin, RoMo and myself all headed to the opening day at the possibly endangered River Oaks Theater. Fortunately, they've not destroyed the place yet for new condos or a Barnes & Noble.

In any case, there are just some films the capture the essence of the modern American family. American Beauty attempted this and succeeded quite well, but the characters were cultural outliers. In other words, though seen in oodles of daytime television, its not actually that common for a father to have sexual relations with his daughter's high school best friend. Just going to put that out there, Qatar.

What this film does is capture the essence of flawed, dysfunctional, and ultimately hopeful and resilient American families through literally the vehicle of a trip across the Southwest for a prepubescent beauty contest. I LOVE all the characters, each goes through personal loss and the matter and which they deal with it and each other touches the heart. This is without being sappy and with a healthy dose of humor.

Hilarious.

All that being said, this movie is solidly and without question my favorite film this year; its quite possibly my wonderful film experience in 2-3. It comes with my highest of recommendations.