Reviews

Where does one begin when describing a masterpiece? How could one come up with a link between a repressed deaf-mute Japanese schoolgirl, a father with two goat-herder sons and an exhibitionist daughter; a Mexican nannie going to her son's wedding and Brad Pitt with Kate Blanchett as a married couple trying to put their lives back together? Brad's acting isn't. It's real life. The actor is the man. Kate Blanchett matches his excellence with her all-too-human injured wife. No glamour Hollywood movie this.

In a film knee-deep in the very best of natural acting, the father of the two boys stands out. He gave his sons a rifle to defend their flock of goats against jackals and they precipitate an international incident. The woman shot is American so her importance - her tragedy - transcends all others. Terrorists indeed! There are too many peaks in this masterpiece to just pick out one or two but I guess that a couple of scenes really moved me. Scenes like the kindness of the bus driver; the harshness of the American border patrol; the pain of the father when his young son is shot dead; Kate Blanchett's all-too-human wife peeing her pants; the naked schoolgirl wishing she were like her non-deaf/non-mute peers; the tears of the soon-to-be-deported Mexican nanny....

An amazing film with many levels.

Enjoy!

Most people have commented on the brilliance of the acting in this movie. I agree with all they said. Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear and Alan Arkin are as good as we would expect them to be. Add sensitive and characterful performances from Paul Dano & Steve Carell. Spotlight the amazing Abigail Breslin as a believable little girl trying to break into the Child Glamour Business through pageants like "Little Miss Sunshine." It was when I contrasted her less than movie-star appearance with all the adult-glam of the other lacquered and made-up girls that I realized the subliminal message here.

Olive's striptease is an honest (but disturbing) expose of what these pageants really are. It's only when Olive's family join her in making this into a game that we can begin cheering for her while being horrified by the hypocrisy of the whole pageant-thing.

A brilliant movie!

This is the worst film I saw during 2006 with bad performances from Orlando Bloom (wooden), Kirsten Dunst (giggly vacuum) and surprisingly, Susan Sarandon (appalling eulogy). The plot begins in a vaguely promising way with Alec Baldwin's uncomfortable and convincing portrayal of a corporate president trying to come to terms with an appalling failure - but from there the film actually does become an appalling failure thanks to Dunst's overbearing and intrusive approach to Bloom in the plane on the way down to Louisville; Bloom's curious non-portrayal of any feelings for his dead father and that (abovementioned) truly dreadful funeral speech by Susan Sarandon. Oh my!