With a tagline like “Everyone just pretend to be normal,” one may expect dysfunctional from Little Miss Sunshine (see the trailer here); however, one may not expect the brilliance of the films cutting, hysterical humor fully equipped with enough dramatic writing to give the storyline enough to stand on its own two feet.

It’s not hard to connect with this dysfunctional family. Courtesy of rottentomatoes.com

Without being stupidly slap-stick, renowned directors of the music video and commercial genre, with gigs including REM, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Gap, Target, and Apple, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, managed to break into their first feature film with stomach clenching, knee-slapping glee.You may have seen movies about dysfunctional families, but you have never seen anything like this. Olive (Abigail Breslin), a pudgy, coke-bottled glasses wearing ten year old has been accepted to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. Her grandpa (Alan Arkin), a drug addict with a less than uncensored mouth has been tutoring Olive for the pageant. Needless to say, with lines like, “Ho oh. I had second degree burns on my johnson, I kid you not,” in front of the children, the routine is less than appropriate.

Little Miss Sunshine. Courtesy of rottentomatoes.com

The two must travel to California with Olive’s Proust scholar uncle, Frank Ginsberg (Steve Carrell), whose recent break up with a male grad student sent him to the hospital after a suicide attempt. Along for the ride is Olive’s fifteen-year-old, emo, and ever-disgruntled brother, who has taken a vow of silence to avoid his family. Driving the loony bin is Olive’s father, Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear), a not-so motivating, motivational speaker whose recent endeavor to publish his nine-step “Refuse to Lose” program is doing anything but refusing.He and his wife, Sheryl (Toni Collette), are barely on speaking terms as the family barrels across country encountering one hysterical mishap after another including the van’s inability to start on its own so the family has to push it up to speed before each one ridiculously hops in the side doors.

Design your own VW bus. Courtesy of rottentomatoes.com

While at first glance the feature’s humor may appear like everything else you’ve seen before, but the incredible writing and acting deliver a one-two punch to the pun line. The film primarily plays off of the humor of the very notion of the family unit; the irony of this strange bunch of people thrown together, yet tied together by tradition. Each scene is so touching because its laughs are based on the humor found only in a deeper reality. They may not be perfect, but they are together. Just as there is humor in real families pretending to be normal, there is humor in this crazy bunch pretending to be sane.

Through corpse stealing, ridiculous applause for a child’s strip tease and arguments over the explanation of suicide, the film has chuckled its way into audience’s hearts. Each character has a way of wrapping you up into their wacky world and creating a sense of normalcy. The writers play upon the awkward encounters between family members, leaving me queasy with memories of my own, “why does Uncle Frank have tape around his wrist?” questions.Even the way the film is shot, in a semi-raw, almost documentary-like reel, brings reality and reminiscence to every conversation. Ultimately, the film accomplishes the goal of good comedy: to touch people through the vehicle of humor. Its laughter has wrapped its fingers around my heart.