Little Miss Sunshine

That third and fourth are the only operational gears on the Hoover family's VW Camper van is an apt mechanical failing: here is a family that is undeniably dysfunctional, but somehow still manages to keep running.

Pop is an aspiring motivational guru, Mom's so perpetually distracted that dinner is invariably KFC, Grandpa is a heroin addict, Uncle Frank's a suicidal Proust scholar, son Dwayne is a sullen wannabe jet pilot with a passion for Nietzsche. And here they all are, hurtling toward a beauty pageant that little Olive has her seven-year-old heart set upon winning. The problem is, Olive ain't no pearly little princess: brown-haired, baby-fatted and bespectacled, her fellow competitors in California's Little Miss Sunshine contest will surely make mincemeat of her - even before the swimsuit round.

While this naturally offers a damn fine opportunity to take pot-shots at prepubescent beauty pageants, Little Miss Sunshine is more importantly an affecting portrait of helter-skelter family life. Abigail Breslin is exceptional as the unquenchedly optimistic Olive, while Toni Collette, as her dazed mother, is as fine-honed as ever. Steve Carell, meanwhile, as the maudlin Uncle Steve, brings a subtlety to the part that one suspects few other comic actors could muster.

It is the sheer strength of the performances occupying every seat in that VW Camper that ensures Little Miss Sunshine (directed by Jonathan Dayton) never collapses into a heap of its own quirkiness. Instead we are left with a kind-hearted and thoroughly amusing rumination on modern America, the beckoning of the open road, and of course, little girls' tiaras.