This white-trash family drama achieves the near impossible, and wrenches tears and belly laughs without ever playing the schmaltz card. It's the tragically sweet story of one girl's mission to make it to Little Miss Sunshine, a grotesque frill-fest being held in California for tiny, hairsprayed and grinning entrants.

Seven-year-old Olive has been practising her beauty pageant dance moves religiously with help from her washed-up but still wild grandpa, who takes breaks from his heroin snorting to lend his support. Dad Richard, is a motivational life coach, and has strictly no time for losers. He is only capable of communicating with his family in nauseating soundbites of team-talk jargon, while his long-suffering wife rolls her eyes and nods politely in agreement.

Their misunderstood and angsty teenage son, Dwayne has taken a vow of silence, and scribbles aggressively on a note-pad if he needs to be heard. When their gay uncle Frank arrives, after a foiled suicide attempt, Dwayne greets him with a marker-penned message; "Welcome to hell."

But somehow, the invitation to sit at the dinner table and share fried chicken and lollipops with this dysfunctional but utterly loveable family unit, is irresistible. When we are then taken on a road trip to California, in their battered yellow VW combi, it feels like a privilege. Each and every character is fighting with personal demons, but trying desperately to keep it together for the rest of the passengers in the van. The script is near perfect, and with the exception of a couple of glaring implausibilities, what remains is choice, boiled-down dialogue, and a dark and often faintly ridiculous brand of humour.

The acting is dazzling, and it is the cherry-picked ensemble cast that made this a hit at the Sundance Festival. As the first feature film from husband and wife team, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, this is a touching, thoughtful look at the modern nonsense that is the American dream, and a pleasingly unsentimental reaffirmation of old fashioned family values.