> And yet, there was Little Miss Sunshine which is about a rather
> dysfuncationl American family, determined to get their daughter to a
> beauty pageant. You might assume that this is a family obsessed with their
> daughter's participation in such competitions, to the extent that they
> squash her childhood, dress her up to look like a 25 year old, etc., but
> it's not the case. Their motivations for wanting to ensure they get to
> that competition is more complicated and subtle than that. More out of
> guilt for being such mediocre parents than anything else.
"Little Miss Sunshine" is definitely worth seeing. Like most good comedies, it skates on the razor's edge of tragedy. It's not really about the father, who's one of those hapless go-getters, bamboozled by the system's lies, though even he wises up in the end. I won't spoil the ending, but the finale was a scream - all these parents are hustling and sexualizing their little girls in the worst way, but the daughter upstages them all, literally and figuratively. The film is also honest and savvy about sexuality, aging, class identity and the violence of class relations.
-- DRR