28 from Glasgow, love films - so you'll probably only ever see me write about them lol
28 from Glasgow, love films - so you'll probably only ever see me write about them lol
Member since:08.03.2004
Reviews:116
Members who trust:9
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris bring to the screen this tale about a little girl who enters into a beauty pageant despite the obvious fact that she is not traditionally beautiful. With only a moment's notice, her family are determined to get her to the event on time, and therefore arrange a road trip in Grandpa's VW van. Along with Olive for the trip is her parents; the encouraging mother who wants to support her kids in whatever they do, the self righteous arrogant father who refuses to ever let the kids fail as well as the acid tongue grandfather who loves his grandkids but appears to hate everybody else, the suicidal uncle who has been fired from his job, and the optionally muted brother who has made it his goal to get into flying school and wont speak a word until he achieves that.
What starts out as a short notice road trips soon descends into a myriad of disasterous events that threaten to prevent Olive from entering the pageant, but will the family's determination win over, or will the various problems they encounter step into to stop Olive's dream from happening.
This is a brutally honest character assesment of a dysfunctional family. Its brilliantly scripted and delivered by the actors. Toni Collette is uniformly good, although the disappointing thing is that her character is given the old Hollywood style of being stuffed in as a leaning post to the male leads. That she outshines them at every turn is typical of Collette's acting ability. Greg Kinnear is fantastic as ever, but his character develops the least throughout the film. Abigail Breslin is superb as Olive, and lends a real honesty to her role for somebody so young. She is never precocious nor annoying, although the final revelations (if they can be called that) of the film seem a bit odd and out of touch. Alan Arkin is a hilarious tour de force, and delivers his quips with style, but at his heart is a kind man who loves his family despite his obvious disdain for his obnoxious son.
There is a hilarious running joke about the van they are riding in, and although it is used at various times throughout the film, it never fails to amuse. Michael Arndt's script is one of those rare finds in Hollywood, where its all about the quality of the writing and acting. The direction is quite basic, there is nothing flashy nor exciting about what we see on the screen, so therefore its all about what we get from the actors and their characters. In the end, this is a film about something and nothing, but it has a rare quality where its full of heart and soul, and it also leaves you wondering what was next for the characters.
The DVD has a full commentary which is full of insightful asides about the making of the film and what the directors tried to achieve with the characters. Its nice to listen to, as the directors are really passionate about the film. The four alternative endings are interesting enough but its clear to see why they opted for the ending that we got. There are no happy endings, its just back to business for the family. And they dont bombard us with Hollywood sentimentality, instead opting for a feel of humanity and honesty where nobody says the right things and nobody ever quite knows what to do to resolve a situation.
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Take a hilarious ride with the Hoovers, one of the most endearingly fractured families in ... more
comedy history.Father Richard (Greg Kinnear) is desperately trying to sell his motivational success programme... with no success. Meanwhile, pro-honesty mom Shery...
Advantages: Lovely bizarre road movie, perfectly balancing family dilemma and humour Disadvantages: Can seem slow and, sometimes, a little over the top
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Feb 5th, 2007
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