Bounce back against all odds

Daryl 2022-03-21 09:01:05

This is the funny thing about life: no matter how hard you try to prepare, plan and push things in a certain direction, sometimes you simply will not get there. And our success-obsessed society has got a word for everyone that's been stuck halfway -the loser. Look at the Hoover family and you will get the picture: the motivational speaker who fails to motivate anyone to buy his nine-step-technique to success; the teenage Nietzsche fanatic who takes a nine-month silent vow to be a pilot yet (spoiler alert) turns out to be colorblind; the best Proust scholar who is beaten, professionally and romantically, by the second best in his field; and on top of this, our little miss with big dream, who, with her jaw -dropping performance in the beauty pageant, trumps the movie's comic zing while (quite unexpectedly) sets a serious perspective on success and failure, dreams and disappointment.

I watched Little Miss Sunshine with the expectation of a slapstick featuring a dysfunctional family. Hilarious, it was, but it's not the laughs that kept me to my toes. I found myself heartened by how the family pulled together as obstacles emerged one after another, and by heart-swelling revelations of the characters though they're often intersected with situational jokes. For a small movie, it managed to ponder on some big questions, like a person's financial worth, moral perfection and popularity; while on success, the answer was also suggested: life is not a beauty pageant, just do what you like and fuck the rest.

I feel myself especially empathetic with Dwayne, probably because his loathing of competition echoes my own. I, too, hate to compete just to impress; for life is not about fulfilling the expectations of others and blowing away the high-ups, it's about setting sights on something you know is hard to achieve yet rising to the occasion regardless. Dare to dream, dare to pursue, dare to bounce back against all odds.

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Extended Reading
  • Melisa 2021-10-20 19:00:44

    When the last family is arrogant and arrogant on stage, I believe most people will sigh, whether our lives, lives and lives are successful because of excellence, or because of mediocrity and unique, whether because of mediocrity and failure, or because of excellence and mediocrity. Woolen cloth?

  • Godfrey 2022-03-25 09:01:05

    Until the climax of the last scene, I concluded that the core of the film is growth, but until the last scene of the film, a family of five huddled on a stage and played with unsightly dances. Whether it was lively or not, I burst into tears. I finally found out that this is actually a movie with a serious tragic core. The key role of the film is actually the grandpa who "leaves" in the middle. Only then did I think back to the beginning of the film. Among the six members of the family, only the grandfather is truly being himself and has a clear self-awareness. The rest of the family members are trapped in unbearable love, unrealistic dreams, and unbearable faces. Among the status quo of life and the unknowing selves, only the controversial character of grandpa is truly being himself. You can say that grandpa eats bad results by himself, or he is happy in time. He is just such a left to the audience. Think about the two sides of the space, when you are watching the movie, what is your situation, and what are the similarities with you, you will feel that he is biased towards which side. And it was this character who left the scene halfway through, passing on the spirit of being brave to be yourself to every family member, and he was the only one who was absent on the final stage.

Little Miss Sunshine quotes

  • Richard: [as he rolls up the sheet that covered Grandpa and packs the bags in the trunk of the bus] You know, Olive, Grandpa would have been proud of you today.

    Olive: Really?

    Sheryl: You were great.

    Frank: You were better than great.

    Dwayne: You were incredible.

  • Frank: [reading what Dwayne is writing on his notepad] But. I. Am. Not. Going. To. Have. Any. Fun.

    Frank: Yeah, we're all with ya on that one, Dwayne.