Should you bring the kids? No! See rating above, because they're not kidding.

This movie about a dysfunctional family on a kooky road trip is fresh, funny and dark. It also reminds us that love comes in all shapes and forms.

Richard (Greg Kinnear) is an entrepreneur promoting his nine-step "Refuse to Lose" program. "No hesitating, no complaing, and no excuses!" he barks at anyone who will listen. His brother-in-law Frank (Steve Carell) is fresh out of the hospital following a suicide attempt. He's a gay Proust scholar who lost his student boyfriend to a colleague. He also lost his job and apartment, and has nowhere to go.

Richard's wife is the alternately cranky and optimistic Sheryl (Toni Collette). They have two children: 7-year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin), whose life-long dream is to participate in a beauty pageant, and brother Dwayne (Paul Dano), a Nietzsche-reading, goth-dressing teen who's taken a vow of silence until he gets into a military flying program.

Their grandfather (Alan Arkin) is a burnt-out hippie who whines that the folks at the nursing home are restricting his drug use. He loves porn. And he's also coaching Olive in her bid to win the "Little Miss Sunshine" pageant.

In the midst of a very awkward dinner of take-out chicken, the family gets a call that Olive is a finalist in the pageant. Since they can't leave the suicidal Frank alone, they all agree to drive from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach, CA, home of the pageant – in their vintage, mustard-colored VW Bus.

As you might imagine, everything goes wrong. I won't give away the details, but let's just say the trip involves a broken clutch, some porn magazines, and a corpse. Not in that order. And of course, everything revolves around the eternally perky Olive and her quest to be "Little Miss Sunshine," which she clearly is in this movie, tiara or no.

PARENTS SHOULD KNOW: This movies includes plenty of R content: sex slang; references to drugs, porn, depression and suicide; and lots of F-words and other profanities. Definitely not for kids younger than 16, if that.