Little Miss Sunshine

Spoiler Alert: This post contains some details of the movie, "Little Miss Sunshine". Don't read further if you don't like hearing parts of the story before watching a movie.

I got to watch the academy award winning "Little Miss sunshine" recently. It was a simple movie and in my opinion, made very well. There were no major schemes, plots, clandestine activities, love affairs, wars, gadgets or spooky characters. It was just a simple story of an ordinary family and their journey together to a children's beauty pageant called ‘Little Miss Sunshine”. The youngest member of the family a cute, smart 7 year old ‘Olive’ aspires to walk away with the "Little miss sunshine" crown. There was no anti-climax at the end. No moral of the movie. No people turning from Good to bad or vice versa. It was just a slice of this family’s life. Maybe I loved it, because it was just that. It was something that anyone could somehow relate to. There are so many things we go through in course of our lives that no one makes a movie out of. It feels nice to sit and watch some slices of your life in an entertaining movie.


Here’s one slice that I particularly liked. Olive’s uncle is a part of the road trip. He is forced to accompany the family because he is suicidal and has to be kept in sight as he just had made an unsuccessful suicide attempt! I wonder how it would feel to be caught attempting suicide. Is there a point living after that? ;) Anyway, so here’s this guy who feels there is nothing to look forward in life and in all his sanity decides that he needs to be elsewhere doing other bigger things like floating around without a body! Ironically, he is forced into this tedious road trip in which he has to drag not only his body but also the rundown van. And the mission of the entire trip is getting Olive to participate in a silly inconsequential (to ‘mature’ adults) beauty pageant. After a painfully long, eventful journey, which would completely drain anyone, they reach the venue just in time. Even before the van comes to a complete halt, this suicidal uncle jumps out of the van and darts off…for a moment, I really thought he was so frustrated with the events of the entire day, that he was tipped off enough to make another attempt at suicide. It looked like he was waiting for the van to stop to get off and do something drastic. I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that this man was running towards the pageant registration desk to ensure that Olive didn’t miss the registration counter timings. Would you expect a guy who would rather be dead to care about a little girl’s fancies? Believe me…he really ran as if it was his life in question. It was really heart warming. None of us have fairy godmothers appearing before us everyday to fulfill our wishes. But once in a while someone around us, does this small but completely selfless thing for you…and that means so much more sunshine than any majestic coach formed out of a pumpkin!