“Little Miss Sunshine is about as quirky as xXx: State of the Union,” writes Radar’s John Cook. “It’s a Sundance genre picture, manufactured with the same empty, production-line cynicism as a Jerry Bruckheimer film, except where studios call for a shower scene with the heroine, Sundance calls for an indie-rock soundtrack. And where studios demand Third Act explosions, Sundance calls for a comically dysfunctional family that somehow rights itself. And where studios demand a happy ending, Sundance demands, well, a happy ending.
“There’s been a Little Miss Sunshine in virtually every Sundance going back for years√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Ǩ¬ùthere’s youthful angst, coming of age, miscommunication, and, usually, a long shot of a sad high-school kid riding a bicycle down a suburban street.
“This year it was Rocket Science, the coming-of-age tale about a high-school kid from a wacky family who overcomes a debilitating stutter and learns something about himself. It’s a perfectly good movie, but it’s exactly what would happen if Brad Grey called CAA and said, “Gin me up a Sundance picture.”
“Last year it was Little Miss Sunshine. The year before, it was Thumbsucker, the coming of age tale about a high school kid from a wacky family who overcomes a debilitating etc., and The Squid and the Whale, the coming-of-age tale about a high school kid from a wacky family who overcomes a debilitating etc. Before that it was Garden State. It goes all the way back to Reality Bites in 1994.
“Some of these are fine films, but they are the products, in their own way, of the same lack of imagination and marketing-driven choices that, according to Redford et. al., are slowly destroying Hollywood.”