Butter

Based on a Jason Micallef script that created a stir in the film industry when it started circulating four years ago, Butter has the kind of subtle humor that's likely to connect with the same audience that gravitated toward indie hits such as Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. The rather flimsy plot is loosely this: for the past 15 years, Bob Pickler (Modern Family's Ty Burrell) has entered (and won) a butter sculpture contest hosted in his small Iowa hometown. But when he is forced into retirement, his snooty wife Laura (Jennifer Garner) decides to pick up the slack and compete to keep the family name attached to the trophy. Of course, the plot is more complicated than that. While Laura thinks she'll easily win, she has to compete with Destiny (Yara Shahidi), a young African-American girl who was just adopted by a naïve young white couple (Rob Corddry and Alicia Silverstone) who instill plenty of confidence in their adopted daughter and tells her she can do anything she wants if she tries hard enough. Though the film's pat ending takes some of the bite out of the proceedings, the movie is so well acted, that's hardly a detriment.