I’ve been on a movie-watching spree recently; indulging in at least two films a week. What spurred on this questionable lack of temperance was my purchase of a $800 BenQ projector. Nothing like having a 70” screen right in my living room! I’ve since debated the merit of ever going to a movie theater again.
I don’t have Netflix or any other streaming subscriptions. I don’t think I will ever get one. Instead, I rent my films online at a cost of around $4 per movie. Ridiculous I know… The goal is to be more intentional with what I watch. I guess I value my attention more than the cost-efficiency of a streaming subscription.
I’ve been going through item by item the “top 100 greatest film of all time”. Films across many different genres; from the American fantasy classic “Wizard of Oz” to the epic gangster flick “Goodfellas”. Out of all the amazing films I’ve watched this year, one really stood out. Quite unexpectedly it was a “comedy” film; a “tragicomedy” film to be exact. By the end of the film, I was crying with a huge grin on my face.
“Little Miss Sunshine” is about a borderline-dysfunctional family in Albuquerque going on a road trip to California to compete in a child beauty pageant. Along the way, a whole slew of unfortunate events befell the Hoover family. Nothing goes right for them. There was the death of a dream, a love, a career, potentially a marriage. I mean (spoiler alert) the grandpa literally dies… Despite the slings and arrows of life’s outrageous fortune, and the unquestionably tragic story arcs, the Hoover family prevails with quite a heartwarming and uplifting ending.
Somehow, the directors managed to turn this modern day “Candide” into a comedy film. Unlike Voltaire’s Candide which attacks the idea of philosophical optimism, “Little Miss Sunshine” highlights the trap of taking oneself too seriously, and the absurdity of the inner turmoil we willingly subject ourselves through in the name of some senseless competition.
The impetus of the script actually came from a Arnold Schwarzenegger quote. While speaking to a group of high school students, Schwarzenegger reportedly said “If there’s one thing in this world I hate, it’s losers. I despise them.” Following reading this quote from a newspaper, Michael Arndt took to the pen. To quote the Michael Arndt:
“And I thought there’s something so wrong with that attitude … I wanted to … attack that idea that in life you’re going up or you’re going down … So to a degree, a child beauty pageant is the epitome of the ultimate stupid meaningless competition people put themselves through.”
Here is the list of characters and a bit more about what they went through.
I won’t bore you with the details of the road trip, it is a long series of misfortune; one after the other. In the end, they arrived at the competition with the door on the van literally falling off. They run into the hotel where the competition is being held to quickly discover that this is not Albuquerque anymore.
As they watch the young girls, barely old enough for elementary school, get their hair done in the most outrageous fashion, put on makeups, fake eye lashes, spray-on sun tan, they quickly realize the absurdity of it all. In short, they blow off some steam and make an utter fool of themselves. After being banned for life from participating in another Little Miss Sunshine pageant ever again, they go back to their van, pushes it forward (as the van is so broken at this point that the engine cannot start without a running start) and heads back home grinning ear to ear, laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Despite the fact that the movie ends on a positive and uplifting note. Objectively speaking, none of their circumstances are any better. The family is still on the verge of financial ruin; the marriage is still tenuous; the father’s self-help business remains unsuccessful; the grandpa remains dead; the brother is still disqualified from ever becoming a pilot; the uncle still lost the love of his life.
However the one thing that did change was their attitude. The ending reminded me of the myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to push a boulder up a hill for eternity; but he was not condemned to dread doing it. As Camus puts it: one must imagine Sisyphus smiling. In the grand scheme of things, perhaps many of the things we lose sleep over is just as trivial, just as ridiculous as the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant.