The 40-Year-Old Intellectual

At first glance, the plot of Little Miss Sunshine — a wacky family crams into a VW minibus for a calamitous cross-country trip to a kids’ beauty pageant — sounds like a hellish stew of road-movie clichés, improbable character quirks and dubious epiphanies. And while it does flirt with all of the above, this feature debut from veteran music video directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris is ultimately saved by an ensemble cast that manages to surprise where the story may not.

Anchoring the group is Steve Carell, cast, safe to say, against type as Frank, a depressed, gay, world-renowned Proust scholar entrusted to the care of his sister Sheryl (Toni Collette) after a botched suicide attempt. Sheryl’s Albuquerque home is a less than ideal haven for recuperation: Husband Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear) is hellbent on becoming a Tony Robbins–like guru despite a lifelong avoidance of anything resembling success; 15-year-old son and Nietzsche devotee Dwayne has taken a vow of silence; and 7-year-old Olive is being coached towards beauty pageant glory by her heroin-sniffing grandpa (the scene-stealing Alan Arkin). Will the Hoovers get to California in time for the Little Miss Sunshine pageant? Will hijinks ensue? Will longstanding rifts be healed? Have you ever seen a movie before?

Yes, this all sounds groan-inducingly precocious. It isn’t. Collette’s character remains refreshingly normal, save for the fact that she voluntarily hangs out with these people, and her presence keeps the family grounded in something resembling reality. Ditto Carell, who may land on short lists for, no joke, an Oscar — there’s nothing he’s done before that would hint at his ability to essay the gaunt, withdrawn Frank, who gradually comes alive throughout the course of the trip. Paul Dano’s largely mute turn as Dwayne is also impressive, as is Abigail Breslin’s frumpy Olive — she’s the anti–Dakota Fanning.

It’s to Dayton and Faris’s credit that, despite being first-time directors, they paint their characters with light strokes, and (with the exception of one twist that can be spotted all the way from space) tie up the plot threads in unexpected ways. That Olive is out of place amongst the spray-tanned, hypersexualized JonBenets is no shock. But Breslin’s climactic dance routine in the talent competition is both hilarious and oddly heartrending.

Just as dysfunctional as the Hoovers but more brazenly cartoonish is 46-year-old Flatpoint High School freshman Jerri Blank, the snaggletoothed ex-con heroine of Strangers With Candy, a prequel to/spin­off of the cult Comedy Central series. Created by and starring Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello and Carell’s former Daily Show sparring partner Stephen Colbert, the show followed bumbling crack whore Jerri as she re-enrolls in high school in the hopes that her moral rehabilitation might rouse her father from his coma.

That’s not merely the premise of the big-screen adaptation, it’s the whole plot. Despite her noble intentions, all the streetwise Jerri (Sedaris) understands are drugs and prostitution, which, along with her polyester pants and dodgy hygiene, makes blending in with the kids difficult.

Though they’ll buy tickets, fans of the show may find the movie redundant and even tepid. Perhaps for this reason, the supporting cast — including Colbert and director Dinello as Flatpoint’s not-so-secretly-dating teachers — is bolstered with A-list names. Philip Seymour Hoffman cameos as a sheepish Board of Education member, while Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker play, respectively, a pompous science teacher and a callous grief counselor named, um, Callas. Though it’s hard to imagine that Sex and the City fans will be interested in gags such as a gym-class running of the bulls.

For a more realistic look at high school athletics, Ward Serrill’s documentary The Heart of the Game takes a low-concept idea — following a tax professor named Bill Resler for seven years as he coaches girls’ basketball at a Seattle high school — and milks it for high drama. All the benchmark sports-movie clichés are present: a homily-espousing coach, a troubled superstar and a team of scrappy upstarts playing in the Big Championship Game. Yet because all these clichés are true, they serve to remind why such narrative archetypes became clichés in the first place. An army of top-tier screenwriters couldn’t craft a more satisfying climax than what unfolds before Serrill’s handicam. With the megaplexes currently gorging on zillion-dollar CGI-fests, a movie this unassuming — and cheap — doesn’t stand a chance of being noticed. Which only makes you root for it more.