Spent the day doing holiday things with the kids in various air-conditioned spaces (it was HOT today) which was fun, capped off with a coupla hours in the cinema watching Little Miss Sunshine, which mr tog and I were very keen to see and felt from the reviews that our just-preteens would be able to hand the M rating (mostly to do with language and a few references to sexual matters). They found enough to laugh at to be OK with it, but more importantly, the mister and I loved it.

This is an amazing film. I was a little concerned when I first heard of it with the premise of a cross-country road trip so that the daughter could go in a Little Miss pageant.
Those pageants horrify me, and I wondered whether it was possible to do an effective dark dysfunctional family farce that didn’t somehow glorify the plasticised cheese that is the big-haired big-grinning parade brigade.

Being wary of spoilers, I can only say trust the writers/directors and let yourself love that little girl who’s so excited about competing that her whole family allows itself to be dragged from Albuquerque to the California coast. I’m already looking forward to seeing it again, because I’m sure I missed things. One for the DVD collection, methinks.

Categories: arts & entertainment