Another American movie

I went to see Little Miss Sunshine.

It's pretty funny and the actors are fun to watch, especially Steve Carell from "The Office" in the role of a gay, suicidal literature professor plopped down in a cutely disfunctional nuclear family. And it's always fun to watch Alan Arkin, an old pro. There are several good laughs, and it's competently directed by a pair of first-timers. And that's impressive, because filming slapstick well is not that easy.

The script is the problem. None of the characters go much beyond a stereotype -- the tightly wound, repressive suburban dad, the foul-mouthed grandpa, the sullen teenager; they're just amped up a bit (grandpa snorts heroin, the teenager reads only Nietzsche and has taken a vow of silence). Everyone emotes on cue and fulfills their role, but they almost never do anything unexpected; they don't really live. The mother figure (can't even remember her character's name, which says something) is the least neurotic, but at moments in her life when she should be torn apart, she merely exhibits stock sadness or anger.

I blame this on the script rather than the actors, because the script demands that the story keep plunging ahead no matter what; it doesn't really give the characters time and space to break out of their molds. The teenager has a meltdown, but is back on the bus in precisely 90 seconds. When they do do something strange or out of the ordinary, it's merely a function of the script, with the purpose of providing entertainment or making the characters consciously zany. Most big gags are telegraphed in advance -- spoiler coming here -- when Grandpa dies on the big car trip and they can't take the time to process hospital paperwork, the family steals the body from the hospital room; I could see that coming a couple of minutes in advance. It's the way the actors get the body out of the room and back into their vehicle that is the real entertaining part.

But it's still distinguished from a run-of-the-mill American movie by not having any guns, car chases or explosions. These days that's saying something. So go see it for a few laughs, have low expectations and you'll probably enjoy it.

Little Miss Sunshine, movies, Steve Carell