It’s probably close to sacrilegious to say this, but I was underwhelmed by this nice little film. I kept waiting for the many laugh out loud scenes, and they just didn’t come until the totally wild scene at the end at the kiddy beauty/talent contest. It’s a great send-up/critique of both regular and especially kiddy pageants, and of course, academic life with all its petty ego stuff and politics. Maybe I just found the actors and the characters all too believable and I was in anything but a self-assured moment when I watched it, but I found I could relate to every one of these darn misfits, failures, and whackos. That’s probably more a comment on me than the film. The acting is all good. Greg Kinnear as the failed inspirational speaker father, Toni Collette as the mother (the normal of the group), Steve Correll as the gay brother who has just tried to commit suicide and has lost his university job with tenure due to some unnamed bad behavior, the son who wants to fly jets, and Olive, the little girl who knows she can win as Little Miss Sunshine. I’m not sure why everyone was so wowed by Alan Arkin as the grandpa, who I liked but wasn’t stunned by. Go figure. Perhaps everyone touting this to the skies hurt it for me