Last night I decided to take a break from reading, mostly because I was starting to get a headache, and went to see Little Miss Sunshine. It was a fun movie, and I'd recommend it to anyone who can laugh at topics such as attempted suicide and heroin use. Ok, so the topics themselves aren't all that funny, but the way they're portrayed in this movie is. I laughed throughout the entire thing.
The story is about a family that lives in Albuquerque. The father is a motivational speaker who is trying to get a book deal (9 steps to being a winner), in the meantime the mother is the breadwinner of the family, the son wants to attend the Air Force Academy (and has taken a vow of silence until he attains that goal), and the daughter wants to win a beauty pageant. The wife's brother tried to kill himself, but the insurance company won't pay for him to remain in the hospital, so he has to live with them because he can't be left alone. Throw in a grandfather who got kicked out of his retirement home because he was using heroin, along with a road trip to California in a VW bus, and let the laughs ensue.
Early in the movie, the entire family is sitting down for dinner and the daughter asks her uncle how he hurt his wrists. At first he tells her it was an accident, but the mother starts to tell her the truth because "She's going to find out anyway." The father wants to make sure that the daughter understands that he doesn't condone it and interjects with thinges like "He did it because he's a loser. A winner would never give up on himself." (quotes used liberally b/c I don't actually remember their exact words). The uncle launches into a list of the events leading up to his decision, and the girl keeps cutting him off before he can explain it all:
Him: I fell in love with someone who didn't love me back.
Her: You tried to kill yourself because of a girl, that's silly.
Him: I fell in love with a boy. One of my grad students.
And on and on it went for a couple of minutes. Good stuff.
I realize that I'm not doing the movie any justice with the way I'm trying to write about it, but if you can see the humor in what I've written here you should definitely go see this movie.
On an only somewhat related note, I had a voice message when I got out of the movie. Since I'd gone to the late showing, the call would have had to have come after 11:00.
"Cool," I thought, "the only time someone calls that late is if it's a booty call."
Then I quickly remembered that there is no booty that would be calling me.
It turned out to be my brother who was trying to keep from falling asleep while he drove the last few hours home from a work assignment. I called him back and talked for a little while until his phone cut out as he went through a patchy service area. I hope he made it home ok. I went to sleep.
1 comment:
I saw previews...it looks funny...
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