Because it is a movie, Abigail Breslin becomes the winner of a local beauty pageant on short notice, and the family drops everything and drive for hours to the state pageant to enter the adorable daughter. Because it is a comedy, everything goes wrong. Laugh it up, fuzzball.
How others will see it. Little Miss Sunshine was a worldwide box office hit, and overwhelmed the critics. BAFTA and the Oscars shamed themselves by bestowing Best Supporting Actor on Alan Arkin, and even worse, giving the Best Original Screenplay award to Michael Arndt. The two prestigious festivals also showered the movie with Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress (Breslin) nominations.
It appears that most everyone has seen the movie. At imdb.com, it has a whopping 400K user votes, and a high user rating of 7.8 out of 10, which is consistent across demographics. The user ratings confirm that most viewers consider it a laugh fest, but an undercurrent of disdain is also present: "ridiculously overrated", "insipid", "distasteful", and so on.
How I felt about it. Where to begin. I'll start with Alan Arkin, a respected character actor for decades, makes the most of his role, but it is awful. He is supposed to be hilarious, but if you had to live with such an offensive and annoying person for any length of time, his death would not be natural. At least they don't tie him to the top of the car, as in National Lampoon's Vacation. Instead, he is spirited out of the window. Why don't they simply leave him behind, and escape through the window. Stealing the body will get them into less trouble?
Literally, it is a running gag to pursue a car going 15 miles per hour. Alan Arkin can catch up the car but dies suddenly for no reason? No one gets bruised attempting to enter a moving car?
How exactly did average-appearance Breslin win second place in a local beauty contest? The mother never worked out a talent routine with Breslin? Instead, that duty was assigned to a sex-crazed, foul-mouthed grandpa? The family gets up on stage to dance to "Super Freak"?
Paul Dano's life goal is to become a military pilot. His plan is to accomplish this by moping and playing mute? Why should it be funny that Carell is gay, or has attempted suicide, or has been abandoned by a lover, or lost out on an award important to his field? Is it funny that Dano learns he is colorblind? Ha ha indeed.
Why is it that the jerks in the movie are male, while the daughter is indeed little miss sunshine, and the mother is normal? If the sexes are equal, why are men typically portrayed negatively while women are not?
There is no denying the commercial success of Little Miss Sunshine. But it can't be due to the story, script, or direction. Its triumph, such as it is, comes from its casting. Carell, Dano, and Arkin bluff their way through bad poker hands, but it can't save the film.