This is essentially the year’s big gun independent flick, like 2004′s Garden State. The first half is somewhat endearing and amusing, but the clichés begin piling up and it slowly starts to fall apart once Grandpa bites the dust. Steve Carrell is terrific as the suicidal gay brother, and the rest of the cast is solid enough, but there’s really a “been there, done that” vibe with the whole affair; characters like the Nietzsche-obsessed, silent-by-choice Dwayne reek of look-at-me indie cockiness. Additionally, the ending is a real odd duck: Olive’s dance routine begs the question of why her grandfather (who gave no indications of being a pedophile) would teach her such dance move. Faithful readers, feel free to enlighten me on the ‘deep’ meaning behind the finale. Harmless enough as passable road movies go, but I can’t help but wish directors of films like these would grow some damn balls.
48/100
#1 by Me on November 24, 2009 - 5:08 pm
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I always interpreted the ending to be reference to Olive never quite “being a super model” but it really didn’t matter because she just had fun. Although the family were very dysfunctional, as a whole what mattered to them all the most was Olive being happy. I think it was generally a feel-good film (which i think was intended) but they utilised some slightly dark situations for comedic value and to demonstrate that they still held together as a family, and were drawn together by Olive’s happiness and innocence. I’m dubious about any review that accuses directors of having no balls then calls one of the main characters a paedophile for teaching a child dance moves for fun, I mean that’s the kind of dancing that kind of grampa would have known about and been able to teach and would of found it sweet because she’s having fun and doesn’t care about what other people think. It’s not as if she was doing a strip tease, and if you want a film with a more depressing ( or ballsy) agenda don’t watch one about a family entering a beauty pageant…
#2 by Elle on July 23, 2010 - 6:42 pm
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You only have to watch a few of those child pagaent routines to understand Olive’s routine. Grandpa obviously must have had some idea of how garish and sexualised these pagaents are. He was just replicating ‘sexy’ from about 30 years ago. I don’t think there is any insinuation that he is a paedophile- I think Olive is the only girl wearing a one piece swimsuit in ghe swimwear section. Overall, I think the routine was just supposed to be outrageous and fun, much like Grandpa.
#3 by William on September 12, 2010 - 2:38 pm
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To the question of why the grandfather would teach his granddaughter such a lewd dance routine: She’s a parody of the other girls. They’re all strippers, prostitutes. If you can’t see that, then I’m afraid there’s little hope for you in understanding the rest of the movie.
In fact, the reviews at this website (100% from Americans?) demonstrate how much of the satirical nature of the film was lost on its audience. It’s holding you (YOU!) all up to a fun-house mirror, and does a pretty darn good job of it as well.
#4 by sumit on February 21, 2011 - 10:51 am
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The movie is fun to watch it was fast and light .His character represents a nymph ,drug addict and an old man going through his late life crisis. .As he was represented as watching a lot of XXX stuff he taught Olive the only dance moves he liked and knew.clearly he had all those models on her mind when he was choreographing her. Now about the ending its was I don’t know if viewers noticed it or not that they all lost on their only hope like Frank’s encounter with his boyfriend death of grandpa,Dwayne’s hope of not making through air force pilot, Richards failure as writer .It was quite that Olive is not going to win the competition anyways,so the family decided to support her and stand by her even though she lost it.After all that they have been through.There coming on stage wasn’t for laugh it was for the courage to stand in front of people who left the show and the pissed judges and courage to stand by her.A small message of what family does to stand.
#5 by beeyotch on March 20, 2011 - 1:40 am
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Grandpa wasn’t a pedophile, he was a freaky asshole who rebelled against everything that prudes like you who live in soap bubbles consider acceptable, until the very moment he died.
Super Freak is a highly sexualized song, granted, but it’s not a song for a beauty pageant, nor exactly the first choice to turn people on.
It’s simply a song that appealed both Olive and Grandpa, that frames their personalities perfectly.
Why do you critics have the urge to over analyze everything?
Some things are just nice or appealing, that’s how art works, it’s not a perfectly thought byzantine dream, it’s a fucking bunch of feelings tossed over and expected to look good and have an interesting pull.
That’s why you critics became critics, because you can’t be artists, because your square thought doesn’t let you see things in any other way.