A family full of contradictions and failures, even if they have to endure constant changes and accidents, but slowly cling together, slowly appreciate the family members of each other’s precious and the warmth and priceless of family love. Even in some or even all aspects of life, you are a loser, you feel in their hearts is not a loser, but a winner.This family, everyone is facing their own different problems. Grandfather, experienced a lot of veterans, foul language, fond of yellow magazines; Dad, career bear a huge failure, he painstakingly studied the “nine steps to success” in his own body are not working, impetuous middle-aged life; brother, silent, Nietzsche, want to be a pilot, a strong sense of misanthropy; uncle, Proust researcher, homosexuality, and the feeling of the world. Proust researcher, gay, his partner and colleagues have left him, failure makes him misanthropic want to commit suicide; Olive, love beauty pageant, want to wear the crown to become a beauty pageant champion, has been immersed in this beautiful fantasy, good-hearted, simple and lovely; the only normal is the mother, just …… she smoked a cigarette preoccupied look illustrates the role she plays at home, she knows all, she does not say through, she hides her sadness in her heart, she tries to maintain the family.
The affection between Olive and her grandfather is touching. Her grandfather teaches her to lap dance, there is enough mischief, but she accepts it and listens to her grandfather’s practice in the hope that one day she can perform on stage.
Finally the opportunity came, she had the chance to go to California to participate in the little miss sunshine selection, so the family and a teacher yellow family car on the road, the American highway side of the mountain rock scenery, let me feel wild and free.
Their journey, a practice in pursuit of affection, along the way seems to be a constant trouble, everyone is experiencing their own insoluble dilemma, this an awkward journey, warm but full of contradictions.
They are all resolving this contradiction, trying to eliminate this sense of group discomfort, they are rubbing off on each other, adapting to each other this strangeness of kinship.
The troubles along the way, the discovery of the brother’s color blindness, the dad facing a career downturn, the death of the grandfather, the meeting of the uncle and his ex-partner, and the mom, facing the powerlessness and apprehension of the family’s chaos.
Oliver, the angelic sunshine beauty, enters the heart of every family member, she touches the family with her sunshine, kindness and simplicity, and a simple hug and a snuggle brings back the affection instantly.
Finally in the midst of the troubles catching up with the nasal congestion, Olive was allowed to participate in the competition after her father begged hard. When the competition started, the father and brother looked at the amazing talent of the girls who were twisting and smiling like adults on the stage, he felt that he had come to the wrong place and should not let his daughter participate. But the mother’s opposition, Olive without any tension on stage, what she thought, I do not know, she just said: dance is taught by her grandfather, she thanked him, she did not know how he died.
She danced a lap dance, taught by her lustful grandfather, she danced with vigor, the people on stage were sighing, but she danced regardless, as if she didn’t care about anything anymore, she only worked for her dream. The family members all stood up, applauded her, rushed up to the stage and danced with her, all happily swinging their bodies, leaving behind all the restraints, kinship returned completely, they held hands and surrounded tightly. This scene moved me and made me feel warm, life should be so ordinary and beautiful.
The family finally found the answer, they may be ordinary, but in their hearts, any one of them is not ordinary, are they hold each other’s world. The ending, the yellow family car in their combined efforts to promote the opening, they jumped on the car one by one, they hold each other, feel each other, affection is the most beautiful and the greatest success in their hearts.
The little yellow car symbolizes the hope of a family’s life, although worn out, although the journey will be lost, but it will always be sunny, because that sunshine is the affirmation of their lives – I am not so successful, but I do not give up the freedom of happiness because it is not so successful.
Admittedly, I am sarcastic about “winning in life”, but my denial of such utilitarian values does not mean that I am touting a degenerate and negative life. You can be unsuccessful, but you can’t lose heart; you can’t reach the finish line, but you can’t give up running.
“Do you know Marcel Proust? French writer, a complete failure. Never had a real job. Monogamous, gay, spent twenty years writing a book that almost no one read. But he’s possibly the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Regardless, when he looks back and examines all the painful days of his former life, he feels that the painful days were the best days of his life, because those painful days shaped him “…
