Sunday, February 25, 2007

Little Miss Sunshine

Have you seen it? I really liked the movie. It didn't make me laugh continuously, but I felt it was layered...comedy on top of a good, thoughtful story with wonderful touches throughout. I found most of the characters to be sympathetic and real. I like a movie where I care about the characters. And I thought the final scenes were terrific — and very funny.

I do have one complaint, though. They have the grandfather snorting heroin. (This is not a spoiler.) I know it's an R rated movie, but a lot of young people will see it. I think it's a mistake to trivialize heroin use like that. They could easily have had the grandfather doing something else. It didn't even have to be related to drugs. The movie doesn't get into his drug use, so there's no mention of how highly addictive heroin is. It's just something funny that Grandpa does. Not a good idea, I would say.

I admit I have a strong anti-heroin bias. The drug has invaded our rural communities and is swallowing up our children. One reason heroin has been so "successful" is that kids are unaware of its wickedly addictive properties. They think it can be used as an occasional recreational drug. And that fallacy is exactly what this movie perpetrates.

When I saw the first drug scene in Little Miss Sunshine I thought Grandpa was snorting cocaine. Cocaine certainly would have fulfilled the intention of showing Grandpa to be inappropriately cool (in the extreme). Of course, to me, pot smoking would have served the same purpose. But maybe I'm unusual.

9 comments:

crystal said...

Hi Susan :-)

I haven't seen it but Jana did recently. She described the little girl's dance to me, etc. I think she said the movie was based on a real life occurrance (?), if that's so, maybe that's why they used heroine in the story. I can't think of any other good reason to do so, because, as you say, it seems to pointlessly romanticize a drug that's very dangerous.

Susan said...

I heard the screenwriter and directors interviewed on NPR. They didn't mention anything about the story being based on real life, but they said they used real children who were competing in a beauty pageant. That's depressing--those girls were made up to the hilt and did the whole provocative pose bit.

Then last night in his Oscar acceptance speech the screenwriter mentioned that when he was a kid his family went on a road trip in a van without a clutch. Perhaps that was the real part. Did Jana like it? People seem to be cheering or yawning.

Cedar Waxwing said...

We saw this film the week before it came out - so we knew next to nothing about it (except that Sufjan Stevens sang a couple of songs in the film). I wasn't bothered by the drug use - I assumed it was cocaine, didn't even know it was heroin - but was disappointed that I couldn't take my kids to see it what with the drug use, cursing and porn magazines.

You have a good point here, Susan. It could have been just as good had they not included the heroin.

Jenny Hill said...

I've seen this movie countless times (we own it), and it is Helen's favorite.

I assumed it was cocaine. I don't think that someone dying is romanticizing the use of the drug at all. The character snorting it died. Sad.

crystal said...

Jana did like it. She tells me about so many movies, I probably mixed up the "real life stoey" part with a different one :-)

Susan said...

I didn't think it was clear that he died from the heroin. He was old...that alone could have him with one foot in the grave as far as the kids are concerned.

I thought it was cocaine, too, at first. Cocaine would have made more sense, IMO.

Anonymous said...

Nicotine is more addictive than heroin, why did you not say anything about the mother's smoking?


Anyway, it's a movie, deal with it.

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