Early morning standing O

By last night, the early buzz at Sundance was starting to crest around "Little Miss Sunshine," which had screened to a hugely receptive festival audience in the afternoon. Accordingly, this morning's 8:30 a.m. screening at the Park City Library Center was a madhouse: "Sunshine" was the movie that suddenly everyone had to see (don't worry, in two days it'll be a different film).

The movie lived up to expectations: some Sundance entries have "crowd-pleaser" written all over them, and this comedy-drama is one of them. Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris from a script by Michael Arndt, it's the latest in that increasingly cliched indie genre, the dysfunctional family road-trip film. Dad Greg Kinnear is a wannabe motivational speaker who constantly harps on winning to cover his own fear of losing, Mom Toni Colette is a suburban breadwinner about to go medieval on her husband, her brother Steve Carell is the #1 Proust scholar in America and a suicidal basket case after his favorite male grad student throws him over, Grandpa (Alan Arkin) snorts heroin, and teen son (Paul Dano) hates the whole bunch so much he's stopped speaking. And they're all driving from Albuquerque to California in a VW minibus to enroll 7-year-old Olivia (newcomer Abigail Breslin) in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant.

It all sounds too, too wacky to work, but the movie's great fun nevertheless; even when it cuts a few corners and goes for the easy laugh, you feel for the characters and end up pulling for them. And underneath the comedy is a more poignant look at the all-American obsession with winning -- the need to be #1 if you want to be anybody at all. The cast is so good I forgot I was watching Hollywood stars in a take-a-pay-cut indie movie: Carell and Arkin are masters of timing and the kids, Dano and Breslin, keep up with the pros. "Little Miss Sunshine" will certainly be picked up for distribution (the deal is probably being hammered out as we speak), so look for it to come to theaters in mid-summer, as a smart alternative to the post-Memorial Day blockbusters.