Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

An absolutely hilarious film that makes an important statement about children's beauty pagents. The father, Richard, played by Greg Kinear, is a motivational speaker who speaks about what one needs to be a winner, but his own family has issues with this. The son has taken a vow of silence until he is admitted to the air force. The uncle, Frank, played by Steve Carell, an ex-professor and the leading scholar on Proust, is a Gay man who is clinically depressed and has failed at committing suicide. Richard's father is a very blunt man who says exactly what he is thinking and is Olive's beauty pagent coach. And the daughter, little Olive, has one dream--to win a beauty pagent. So they pack up and go on a road trip to help the daughter achieve this dream. During this dysfunctional family's road trip, many things happen along the way that shows just how dysfunctional this family is, but at other times they do bond and come together.

The most important message, I think, was how seriously messed up it is to put little girls in beauty pagents that make them appear older than their ages, in which they wear makeup that makes them appear to be little hookers (pardon the language). It's quite disgusting and sad really.

Little Miss Sunshine is a dark comedy, but one that everyone should watch. It's the funniest movie I've seen in such a long, long time. Definitely rate this a 5 out of 5 stars for getting across an important message in such a dark and humorous way.