A small movie on dysfunctional families running for Oscar ___ 8/10

Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
Written by Michael Arndt

Abigail Breslin … Olive
Greg Kinnear … Richard
Paul Dano … Dwayne
Alan Arkin … Grandpa
Toni Collette … Sheryl
Steve Carell … Frank

The Academy Award nominees for best picture of 2006 are as follows:

Babel
The Departed
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

And though I’ve seen and reviewed Eastwood’s companion film to Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers, the only movie I’ve seen on this list so far is LMS.  My personal feeling is it’s a good movie—perhaps providing unique insights into how to resolve a dysfunctional family—but not big enough to win the Oscar.

The setup: we learn very quickly the nuclear family portion of the ensemble consists of a motivational speaker Pop (Greg Kinnear), his long-suffering wife Sheryl (Toni Collette), a seemingly psycho son Dwayne who reads Nietzsche and doesn’t speak, and Olive (Abigail Breslin), the daughter innocently addicted to child beauty pageants.  Continue reading →