OUR REVIEW
by Dave White
Who's in It: Steve Carell, Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin
The Basics: A screwed-up family — that includes a failed motivational speaker, his angry wife, the wife's suicidal Proust scholar brother, a mute son and a drug-addicted grandfather — make a cross-country trip in a busted-up VW van so that the youngest child can compete in a child beauty pageant, even though she's not remotely JonBenét-ish.
What's the Deal? This is the coolest, smartest, funniest movie I've seen so far this year. I suffered through other people telling me this and building it up for me until I knew it couldn't compete with its own hype. In fact, I was distrustful because I've already seen enough pageant parody to last me a lifetime. But they found a new way, one that's fresh and shocking and sweet, all at the same time.
What It's Really About: How American culture has turned into a nonstop, pain-in-the-butt grasp for success, how it's not enough to be normal and happy. You have to be No. 1 at whatever you do, or you've failed. You loser.
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