As I usually find it pointless to outdo the quick summaries provided by other online sources, I'll let IMDB do the talking: "A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus."

This movie is equal parts Napoleon Dynamite and The Royal Tenenbaums, which ought to bode poorly since I found the first to be vapid, shallow, brainless, and worst of all, unfunny, and the second to be unexeptional (I blame this partly on the fact that I came late to this particular Wes Anderson film and might have already become too accustomed to his style). The genre of "outcasts who bond together against the world" is nothing new (I just last month rewatched Harold and Maude, 1971) and it's been mined rather a lot lately, as in the cases of the two films I cited. But whereas I found no particularly likeable characters in either of those films - though I grant GG that Anjelica Huston was good, and I thought Gwyneth Paltrow was okay - this movie has at its center a truly sympathetic character in Olive, played by Abigail Breslin.

The titular and emotional star of this movie, Abigail accomplishes in a very unassuming way what Jon Heder never even got close to, and that which Luke Wilson was able only to approach: delivering a character who is sweet, charming, entirely believable, and strong enough to stitch together the seams of some mighty famous actors already: Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Toni Collete, and Steve Carrell! There's not a moment in this film where she's overwhelmed by any of them, and there are scenes where she shines right in the middle of the entire group. It's truly an intrepid performance. I can count four scenes off the top of my head where she just stole my heart. I think the difference between her and other characters of this ilk is that she shamelessly wears her heart on her sleeve, is filled with an unjustified but ingratiating optimism (hence the play on the title), which is striking given the obvious and inevitable implied discomfort of her coming teen years. She's not so broadly drawn that you feel comfortable dismissing her because of hamfisted directorial manipulation and her surface awkwardness is not meant to be embraced in-and-of itself at the expense of her truly innate eccenticity. She has no jingoistic catchphrase and her distinct sartorial style, if there is one, is no more affectatious than that of any other impecunious child. The result is you have to conclude she is at least what the world ought to be, if it isn't, and it's the haughty disdain of others that gets in the way.

Greg Kinnear plays "the jerk you hate" who becomes "the guy you root for" and does so with a bit more skill than most. I think it's because he's played pompous before, and he knows well how to unfold it. Toni Collette takes a mostly nothing role and, while not dazzling, she does manage to keep it from devolving into zaniness, neuroses, or irritating nagging - something common in your more average studio comedy. Steve Carrell gives a very understated performance and I think I'm grateful that he did. Had he tried to do more with it, his character could have become obnoxious and ruined the tone of the movie. He is deft. Alan Arkin is given room to play with the salty old man bit, and he makes it entertaining without you losing respect for him. He also plays his scenes with Abigail with a sweetness that usually you refuse to accept from a vulgarian such as this.

Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris appear to have an extensive background in music videos and I think it serves them well here. They understand the strength of letting the action speak for itself. Point the camera and shoot. When you have a cast of this caliber, it's important to let the actors feel their way around and not try to apply too much formula to them. The synthesis here is poetic.

The only reason I won't go into specifics about scenes I liked is that the movie has yet to have a general release and I don't want to set expectations too high, nor do I want to take out the surprises this film delivers in the way of sidestepping cliches. Yes, there are a few cliches... but then again.. too few to mention. I also don't believe in morally intimidating people into accepting a film about outcasts on MY terms. **ahem** I think that kind of posturing strips a movie of its own worth (if it in fact has any) and becomes simply a means to browbeat people into accepting an assertion about its superiority without providing a legitimate reason to do so. **cough*cough** I am simply here to state my affection for this movie, and its distinction in the genre. If you don't like it, the only judgement I will render unto you is very poor taste, but I won't go so far as to paint your heart black, even in jest. I don't take my nerd flicks that seriously.