It's always with the goddamn fucking chicken

I caught a screening of Little Miss Sunshine tonight, and aside from several critics, let me tell you that this flick is amazing. Well crafted, well scripted and well performed all around.

This is another in a stream of movies that have caught my eye at just the right time in my life. Going into the theater, I was led to believe that at the very least, I'd have fun just seeing a group of characters more fucked up than me, but I was very surprised to find that every character was well rounded in their own level of dysfunction, and that every thing they said and did had a great payoff in the end.

The road trip aspect of the film reminded me a lot of National Lampoon's Vacation, the direction reminded me a lot of the Roysal Tenenbaums, but the general themes each character reminds me of American Beauty. Like American Beuty, we deal with drugs, homosexuality, depression and a desperate need to do something with one's life other than deal with the real problems at hand. Each character embodies one or more of those attributes with wonderful balance.

You have the heroin-addicted grandfather, the suicidal uncle, the depressed brother, the overbearing dad, the mother struggling to keep everything together...and then there's the titular little miss sunshine, the daughter; the last bastian of purity this family has left, and whose goals of winning a beauty contest sets the film and the road trip in motion.

What surprised me was what kept the family together through all of this. In a traditional Hollywood movie, the conflicts would have just kept adding up, but in this film, the filmmakers took the time to allow the characters to bond through their common miseries without letting the underlying tensions tear them apart. While at the same time, they've avoided the pitfalls of a family movie where in the end all that matters is that they're family. No, in Little Miss Sunshine (my vote for best title of the year, by the way), they all accept the fact that escape is not an option when it comes to your family, and that you must perservere despite that drawback.

One by one, we see hopes get shattered, we see their worst fears realized, and their the lives they carved out for themselves crumble at their feet, and what I found great about the film is that, much like real life, it's not the end of the world. So what if things don't end up exactly as you planned it. So what if everything you set out to do blows up in your face. So what if you don't entirely enjoy the ride or the people you're riding along with. You gotta stick with them or else you're never gonna get back home.

It was perfect that I saw this film with friends. In the discussions I had with my friend Mary at the bar afterwards, the perspective I gained from the film helped me better articulate the anxieties I have with my own life.

I turn thirty one week from today, the age where my parents' generation determined you were no longer able to be trusted. Looking around to my friends' lives, with their marriages and their children, I feel like I'm still a child. Of my circle friends back in Arkansas, I was the one of the first of them to get engaged, yet it seems like I may be the last of them to finally get married. Of my friends here, I'm well trusted and well loved...if only I could see myself the way they do though their eyes.

I feel I'm getting better and better at getting my mind straight every day. It really helps when I don't think about it so much. I'll know I'f ready for whatever's next when I don't automatically balance out a positive with a negative. When the scale tips more towards the good side, I'll be to my goal. As for right now, I'm gonna sit back and enjoy the ride.