Little Miss Sunshine
The husband and wife directorial team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris bring us 2006′s Little Miss Sunshine, a poignant and touching comedy-drama. The film was made on a relatively shoestring budget of $8 million and was produced by Big Beach Films. Fox Searchlight came along and bought the rights to the film for $10 million, which was reportedly one of the biggest deals of its kind made in the history of the Sundance Film Festival. Fox Searchlight made the right decision, as Little Miss Sunshine would go on to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and would snatch up two Academy Awards (Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay).
The film follows the Hoover family, a very dysfunctional family that lives in New Mexico. Sheryl Hoover (Toni Collette) is an overworked mother of two that has recently been charged with looking after her brother, Frank (Steve Carell), after a suicide attempt. Sheryl’s husband is Richard (Greg Kinnear), a struggling motivational speaker and life coach that employs his failing methods with his own family. Dwayne (Paul Dano) is Sheryl’s son from another marriage and he’s a Nietzsche-reading teenager that has taken a vow of silence and wants to become a pilot. Richard’s father, Edwin (Alan Arkin), also lives with them and was recently evicted from his retirement home for snorting heroin. Edwin is close to his granddaughter, the delightful Olive (Abigail Breslin), and has been teaching her a routine for the upcoming beauty pageant entitled, naturally, Little Miss Sunshine.
Olive learns that she qualifies to the pageant in California, so the whole family supports her by driving from New Mexico to California in a broken down Volkswagen van. Family tensions play out throughout the film, as the Hoovers encounter various struggles along the way that test their resolve and their family unit as a whole. It is the ultimate family road-trip, with non-stop trials and tribulations as the poor Hoover family tries to get their daughter to the competition. Without spoiling much of the plot, the film covers the beauty pageant at the climax and some unexpected family unity comes as a result of the realization of what’s important in life. Nearly every member of the Hoover family has lost and learned something on the trip, resulting in a painful and touching voyage.
The film’s script is incredibly funny and touching, packed with loads of dry wit and comic situations that teeter just on the edge of dark comedy. Little Miss Sunshine uses real situations and pushes them just a touch further so that the real human drama can unfold beyond the comedy. Instead of going for obvious laughs and letting the audience linger, the film pushes a step further into heart-wrenching material and touches the heart and the funny bone all at once.
The characters in the film are truly rich, with stellar performances from all involved. Each family member has individual identities and issues that keep us captivated and enthralled. We learn to cheer for each member of the Hoovers, as they each come up with a moment of “clarity” in their own special way. Little Miss Sunshine invites these very flawed characters into our lives for a brief period of time and the end result is a family unit that is so lovably broken that it becomes incredibly exciting to see them succeed. The climax of the film is so blisteringly funny and touching that it draws the characters closer to the heart than ever before, allowing the very natural elements of the film’s organic cohesion to provide heartwarming feelings. Yeah, so I’m sappy…
Little Miss Sunshine is the inevitable result of perfectly drawn characters, tremendously gifted performers getting the most out of their roles and expert direction boosted by a terrific and suitable soundtrack. It is a quirky, dark, trying and painful film to watch at times, but the end result is immensely rewarding and the journey is more than worth it. Carell, Kinnear, Collette, Dano, Arkin, and little Breslin are all tremendous performers and the film showcases each of their strengths with dignity and class while making them do some of the most ridiculous things thought possible. It is a truly unique human experience that will remain imprinted on the viewer long after the credits have rolled. Little Miss Sunshine is a rare treat and the organic outcome of all of the parts of filmmaking coming together beautifully.
Trailer:
