Director: Jonathan Dayton Valerie Faris, 15, 99min
Stars: Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Paul Dano, Steve Carell
A road trip that navigates through marital crisis, suicide attempts, addiction and despair, this is an American indie comedy in the vein of work by Todd Solondz or, to a lesser extent, Alexander Payne. The debut feature from the husband and wife directing team is the kind of comedy that’s as likely to prompt winces as laughs. The cheerful, cutesome title notwithstanding, this journey takes in some fairly dark places.
Seven-year-old Olive (Breslin) is a strikingly normal child — slightly plump, bespectacled, affectionate and, given the circumstances, surprisingly well-adjusted. The circumstances in question are a father whose shaky career as a success-driven motivational speaker repeatedly reinforces his own personal failures and a mother who sees her husband as a bad joke that stopped being funny long ago. Then there’s a silently mutinous older brother, a suicidal gay uncle and a heroin-smoking hedonist of a grandfather.
When, after a judging anomaly, Olive finds herself in the final of a pre- pubescent beauty pageant, the family of misfits pile into a barely functioning VW camper van for a three-day cross-country trip. They’re either going to kill each other during the journey, or they’re going to develop some kind of grudging respect.
The cast is top-notch. Carrell is the brooding Proust scholar on suicide watch. The rising star Dano makes the most of a largely silent role as Olive’s older brother. And in a characteristically ambivalent role — the loveable guy you want to punch for much of the time — Kinnear shines. But the real illicit joy of the film is Alan Arkin’s drug-snaffling, porn-devouring grandfather.