Little Miss Sunshine-2006

Director Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris

Starring Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell

Scott’s Review #697

Reviewed November 23, 2017

Grade: A

A film that became a sleeper hit at the time of release in 2006 and went on the achieve recognition with year-end award honors galore, Little Miss Sunshine holds up quite well after over ten years since its debut.

Combining family humor with heart, audiences will fall in love with the antics of the dysfunctional Hoover family, warts and all, as they strive to persevere endless obstacles to enable precociously, seven-year-old daughter, Olive, a chance at competing in a beauty pageant hundreds of miles away.

The film is a comedic treat with charm and contains uproarious fun.

Directors  (and husband and wife team) Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris start right to work kicking off the humor in style as the one hour and forty-one-minute film introduces depressed Uncle Frank (Steve Carell) to the rest of the Hoovers as he comes to live with the family after a failed suicide attempt.

Frank, who is gay and has recently been dumped, is Sheryl Hoover’s (Toni Collette) brother and has a dry sense of humor.

He fits in well with the other peculiar members of the clan- Dad Richard (Greg Kinnear), a struggling motivational speaker, Grandpa Edwin, a vulgar, irritable man, brother Dwayne, angry and refusing to speak, and finally, pudgy-faced, Olive.

The brightest spots in Little Miss Sunshine are the exceptional writing and the nuanced, non-one-dimensional characters. Each character is both good yet troubled in their way and the overall message of the film is an important one.

The plot of the film encompasses a beauty queen pageant and the lifestyle this involves- hypocrisy and plastic nature is the main theme.

When the family stops at a roadside cafe for breakfast, Olive hungrily orders ice cream and is shamed by a member of the family- she must watch her figure, she is told.

Other members instead encouraged Olive to be herself.

Little Miss Sunshine poses an interesting dissection of the pressures very young people face to be perfect, especially in the beauty pageant business, and the message society sends.

Shocking is a scene where many of the contestants, all under the age of ten, appear in sexy, glamorous makeup, and bikinis.

Little Miss Sunshine is a very funny film and this undoubtedly is due to the chemistry that exists among the cast of talented actors. Quite the ensemble, all five of the principal characters have an interesting relationship with each other.

Too many film comedies suffer immensely from forced jokes or typical “set-up” style humor, plot devices created to elicit a response from the audience- which I call “dumbing down”.

Little Miss Sunshine, however, feels authentic and fresh- a situation becomes funny because there is an honest reaction by the characters.

The film is a slice of the life experience of an average blue-collar family.

A standout scene to mention is the hysterical one in which the Hoovers are pulled over by a highway police officer. To say nothing of the fact that the Hoovers are “escorting” a corpse to their destination, along with pornographic magazines, their classic, beat-up, yellow Volkswagen bus barely runs and contains a malfunctioning horn that beeps at inopportune times.

These hilarious scenes work on all levels as the comic timing is palpable and leads to a laugh-out-loud response.

Furthermore, the climactic “beauty pageant” scene is fraught with physical humor.

Olive, the oddball in a group of hypersexualized, young starlets, takes inspiration from her grandfather to simply “be herself”. She does so in a hilarious version of “Super Freak” that is R-rated, both shocking the audience and celebrated by others- specifically her entire family.

Olive successfully proves that she can be herself and happily does so.

How wonderful and refreshing to find a comedy with honest, ample humor and real integrity that can shine many years after its first release and retain the richness and zest that originally captured legions of viewers.

As proven over time with many independent films, wonderful writing and directors sharing a vision, go a long way in achieving a quality piece of filmmaking.

Oscar Nominations: 2 wins-Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor-Alan Arkin (won), Best Supporting Actress-Abigail Breslin, Best Original Screenplay (won)

Independent Spirit Award Nominations: 4 wins-Best Feature (won), Best Director-Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (won), Best Supporting Male-Alan Arkin (won), Paul Dano, Best First Screenplay (won)