Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

This movie is hilarious, even watching it for the third or fourth time.
Olive Hoover (Abigail Breslin) competes in beauty pageants but her mother, Sheryl (Toni Collette, great) isn't a stage mother. Olive's hair isn't curled, hair-sprayed or teezed. But she has heart and talent, misguided talent, but talent nevertheless.
She, out of the blue, gets to participate in this contest nearly nine hundred miles away. Her father, a misguided optimist/motivational speaker, Richard (Greg Kinnear) isn't thrilled with this though he likes her attitude, doesn't want them to fly as they don't have the funds, which means that her whole family will drive to get there.
That includes her gay uncle who is depressed and was literally just released from a hospital after his suicide attempt, Frank (Steve Carell) and her Nietzshke loving brother who has taken a vow of silence and hasn't spoken a word in nine months, Dewayne (Paul Dano) and her heroin addicted, porn loving grandfather, Edwin (Alan Arkin).
The trip has its issues, such as the clutch breaking almost immediately on the family's old bus which means that they need to run and jump into the car. Then, poor Grandpa dies and they can't leave the body there but they can't legally take it with them as they are crossing state lines. So, they sneak the body out the hospital window and make a run for it. They are even pulled over by the cop just after the horn breaks, but fortunately, the dead body isn't discovered as Grandpa's porn falls out in from of the cop and he likes it, letting Richard off with a warning. Dewayne discovers that he is color-blind and his dreams of flying planes for the air force is dashed so he royally freaks out and breaks his vow of silence. So they arrive at the hotel a few minutes late and the woman in charge (Beth Grant) doesn't care about their sob story but fortunately, Olive is still allowed to compete, which she does, despite the objections of both her father and Dewayne. Her dance is offense to say the least. She performs a strip-tease but at least she has genuine confidence. She is banned from beauty pageants in California for life as a result of the dance she performed in memory of her grandfather, something he helped her plan.
The plot may be fairly basic, but the characters are complex and great with equally great acting and truly hilarious scenes, especially the one where Grandpa tells Dewayne to have a lot of sex with a lot of different women, but don't do heroin until you're old. He also loved the retirement home he was kicked out of, but he loved the amount of women there.
Sure, there are some scenes that are odd, like when Frank runs into his ex-lover at a gas station in the middle of nowhere and what about Richard's failed book deal with Stan Grossman (Bryan Cranston)? I wish we had a little more background about that, but whatever.
It is wonderful showing a real family on film, one that has money struggles and petty arguments about petty problems, or real problems. This is a family that will stick together, despite all their problems and disagreements and that is a wonderful sight. Grade: A-