Little Miss Sunshine

Average customer rating: 4.0

"Oh my God, I'm getting pulled over. Everyone, just... pretend to be normal."
Great movie, Awful DVD.
FANTASTIC
Who would've thunk, this was about being free!
Slightly over the top, but very entertaining

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Little Miss Sunshine
Starring: Abigail Breslin , Greg Kinnear , Paul Dano , Alan Arkin , and Toni Collette
Director: Valerie Faris , and Jonathan Dayton
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Product Group: DVD
Binding: DVD
ASIN: B000K7VHQE
2006-12-19

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Pile together a blue-ribbon cast, a screenplay high in quirkiness, and the Sundance stamp of approval, and you've got yourself a crossover indie hit. That formula worked for Little Miss Sunshine, a frequently hilarious study of family dysfunction. Meet the Hoovers, an Albuquerque clan riddled with depression, hostility, and the tattered remnants of the American Dream; despite their flakiness, they manage to pile into a VW van for a weekend trek to L.A. in order to get moppet daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) into the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Much of the pleasure of this journey comes from watching some skillful comic actors doing their thing: Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette as the parents (he's hoping to become a self-help authority), Alan Arkin as a grandfather all too willing to give uproariously inappropriate advice to a sullen teenage grandson (Paul Dano), and a subdued Steve Carell as a jilted gay professor on the verge of suicide. The film is a crowd-pleaser, and if anything is a little too eager to bend itself in the direction of quirk-loving Sundance audiences; it can feel forced. But the breezy momentum and the ingenious actors help push the material over any bumps in the road.-- Robert Horton

<span class="h1"><strong>Beyond Little Miss Sunshine</strong></span> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="4"> <tr align="center" valign="top" class="tiny"> <td width="33%"> <img src="http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/B00005LOKR.01._SCTZZZZZZZ_.jpg" border="0">
More Dysfunctional Family Comedies</td> <td width="33%"> <img src="http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000CCW2P2.01._SCTHUMBZZZ_.jpg" border="0">
More films from the stars of Little Miss Sunshine </td> <td width="33%"> <img src="http://ec3.images-amazon.com/images/P/B00005JNC2.01._SCTZZZZZZZ_.jpg" border="0">
More Independent Films Turned Sleeper Hits</td> </tr> </table> <span class="h1"><strong>Stills from <I>Little Miss Sunshine</I> </strong></span> <table border="0" cellpadding="4" width="100%" cellspacing="4">

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Description

Take a hilarious ride with the Hoovers, one of the most endearingly fractured families in comedy history. <P>Father Richard (Greg Kinnear) is desperately trying to sell his motivational success program...with no success. Meanwhile, "pro-honesty" mom Sheryl (Toni Collette) lends support to her eccentric family, including her depressed brother (Steve Carell), fresh out of the hospital after being jilted by his lover. Then there are the younger Hoovers?the seven-year-old, would-be beauty queen Olive (Abigail Breslin) and Dwayne (Paul Dano), a Nietzsche-reading teen who has taken a vow of silence. Topping off the family is the foul-mouthed grandfather (Alan Arkin), whose outrageous behavior recently got him evicted from his retirement home. When Olive is invited to compete in the "Little Miss Sunshine" pageant in far-off California, the family piles into their rusted-out VW bus to rally behind her?with riotously funny results.

Customer Reviews:

"Oh my God, I'm getting pulled over. Everyone, just... pretend to be normal.".......2007-06-11

Little Miss Sunshine was an excellent film, and I recommend it. The story is about a family of misfits who band together to take a quixotic journey in a yellow VW bus with no clutch, and a horn that is stuck in the honk position. On this journey they learn the importance of love, and family. That would be such a cliché, were it not so artfully executed. One of the scenes revolves around color blindness, and that seems an apt metaphor for the blind spots otherwise intelligent people can have when it comes to seeing their own needs to love and be loved.

Steve Carell plays Frank Ginsberg, who is the nation's foremost Proust scholar. He has just attempted suicide because his rival, Larry Sugarman, the #2 Proust scholar, has stolen the young male graduate student he was in love with, he was fired from his teaching position, and Sugarman has just published a bestseller on Proust, and their ad campaign is calling Sugarman THE foremost Proust scholar. At the time this was made, Carell was not a hot commodity. Robin Williams or Bill Murray were considered for the part, but they couldn't afford them. The producers complained that Carell did not have enough star power to energize the film--but in the short year since, he starred in a hit movie, The 40-Year Old Virgin, as well as starring in a hit comedy series, The Office, for which he received an Emmy. He also appeared in Will Ferrell's Anchorman, but the character he played--a mentally challenged weatherman--gave no indication of the range he would display in Little Miss Sunshine.

The perfect storm of success changed their minds, and Carell was called upon to promote the film. In fact, I just watched a little promotional clip on Amazon where he is actually interviewing himself, and both Carells do an excellent, though tongues firmly in cheeks, job of it. He is very adept at playing a gay intellectual, and shines particularly in his interactions with Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear), Grampa Hoover (Alan Arkin), Olive Hoover (Abigail Breslin), and Dwayne (Paul Dano).

Greg Kinnear plays a wannabe Tony Robbins, with a 9-Step program. He is cast well here. His boyish good looks serve him well, as they did in As Good As It Gets, but as they worked against him in Auto Focus, where he failed to play a convincing Bob Crane due to acute cuteness. Kinnear looks to be as shallow as Pat Sajak, but then when things don't go his way, he proves to be a veritable Alex Trebek, as he conveys a much more complex individual. He spouts cliché after cliché, about the difference between winners and losers, and how he won't give up, but inside, he is crumbling. He is easily the least sympathetic character, just by his annoying perkiness, and that is quite an achievement when you are running against an angst ridden teenage nihilist who has taken a vow of silence, a pretentious homosexual suicidally depressed Proust scholar, and a foul mouthed dirty old man, who was kicked out of the retirement home for snorting heroin. However, by the end of the movie, even Richard is a candidate for redemption. His best line might have been spoken as they drove on with an incessantly honking horn and a corpse in the trunk, still desperately trying to get young Olive to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant: "Oh my God, I'm getting pulled over. Everyone, just... pretend to be normal."

Alan Arkin won an Oscar for best supporting actor, and though he only appears in the first half, his presence is felt throughout, and he thoroughly deserves his Oscar for this performance. He is foul mouthed, lascivious, and in our first encounter, he is shown snorting heroin (actually it was crushed up vitamin B12 tablets). He would seem to be an unlikely target of sympathy, but beneath that rough exterior beats a heart of gold.

The earliest movie review I remember reading was for a film called Popi which starred Arkin. In it he plays Abraham, a Puerto Rican single father in Brooklyn who wants a better life for his two boys, so he contrives to pass them off as Cuban refugees. This was in 1969, long before the Elian Gonzales incident. "Better to drown in the ocean than in the sewer" was the tagline. What I remember from the film review was that they accused the director of "doing the kids dirt" by trying to manipulate the audience with their cuteness. I knew exactly what he meant, because there were these long montage scenes set to music of the kids cavorting and frolicking through a graveyard, acting so cute you wanted to puke.

The directors of Little Miss Sunshine do not fall into this trap. Abigail Breslin plays a young beauty contestant hopeful. She is the Little Miss Sunshine of the title, but though you might think it is meant to be ironic and sarcastic, she is a hopeful ray of sunshine, without ever going too far into the excessive cuteness mode. For being in such a dysfunctional family, she is remarkably well adjusted, and though naïve about many things, she seems to have an emotional wisdom beyond her years.

Abigail wore a fat suit, and is in marked contrast to the actual child beauty pageant contestants tapped to play themselves, essentially, in the film. They used their actual costumes and routines, exactly as they would in competition. She wears glasses, and good use some dental work. But you keep hoping that her routine will hit a grand slam, but that possibility is remote considering her act was choregraphed by her recently deceased Grampa (Alan Arkin, in an Oscar winning supporting role). When you hear the music he chose, Rick James' Super Freak, you know her chances of an upset victory are nil.

Also adept at avoiding the too-cute trap was Paul Dano as Dwayne, the teenager from a previous marriage who follows the teachings of Friedrich Nietzsche, has taken a vow of silence, dreams of being a jet pilot, and hates everyone, as he writes in a notepad. When Frank asks if his hatred includes his family, he underlines Everyone, for emphasis. He reluctantly agrees to go on the journey, when Sheryl, his mother, says if he does, she will pay for his flight school. He writes, OK, but I. won't. have. any. fun. This whole shtick of writing in the pad could get annoying, but actually is handled very well, as a great running gag. Key moments of his character's transformation or turns of plot are conveyed very skillfully with this device. His acting is none too shabby, either. At first he wears a t-shirt with the face of Big Brother, from George Orwell's 1984. Later his t-shirt bears the slogan: Jesus Was Wrong. Somewhere along the journey he goes through a subtle metamorphosis, and emerges as empathetic and sympathetic, while still avoiding the too-cute trap.

Toni Collette plays Sheryl, the wife of Richard, daughter-in-law of Grampa, the sister of Frank, the mother of Olive, and the mother from a previous marriage to Dwayne. It was a very strong ensemble cast, and she was the glue that held the dysfunctional family together.

The movie was a hit at Sundance, where it was picked up for about ten million dollars. It took a long time to make, about 5 years, due to difficulties getting financing. It was the proverbial "Little Movie That Could." The struggle to get this movie made would seem to parallel the struggle that Richard goes through to get his self help 9-step program book published. But in the movie's case, there was a much better outcome.

Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris made The Smashing Pumpkins video for the song, 1979. In a scene in a convenience store, uncle Frank's purchase is $19.79.

Great movie, Awful DVD........2007-06-10

Although the movie is definately one of my favorites of all time, this DVD is awful. The picture quality is not good, and the extras are severely lacking. Wait for the inevitable double-dip, and if you have a BD player, wait for it there.

FANTASTIC.......2007-06-08

Strange intro... but by the end of the movie you HAVE to own it!

Who would've thunk, this was about being free!.......2007-06-07

Its good and full of sarcasm. The film is about a totally dysfunctional family:
a.) a suicidal gay professor
b.) a cocaine addict and pervert of a grandpa
c.) an airforce aspiring teen who took the vow of silence
d.) a success strategist
e.) a beauty queen in the making
and f.) mom stretched-thin in the middle of all the drama.
But who would've thunk that this was all about freedom to be your own. Its about owning your dreams and failures. Heck, there was even a line where Steve Carell said something like...your most miserable times are more important than happy times, because they bring out the best in you. Who would've thought that all this, and more, came out of a yellow van.

Slightly over the top, but very entertaining.......2007-06-05

It's not a perfect film, but it is definately entertaining, very funny at times and worth watching.

There are no huge stars in this film, but there's an impressive cast of actors that you kind of recognize from small parts in other movies. For example "The Daily Show" alum Steve Carell plays the uncle recovering from a suicide attempt, although it was such a different role for him I didn't even realize it was him until halfway through the movie.

Although it might be tempting to describe this as a movie about real people with real problems, the hand of Hollywood exaggeration is at play here. The way this family just experiences one huge problem after another is a bit over the top, and probably puts this film more in the category of "Worst vacation ever/Road trip disaster" films (like "National Lampoon's Vacation", "Planes, trains, Automobiles", "Road Trip", etc, etc, etc) than a family drama.

Not that I'm complaining mind you. I've seen a few films that tried to imidate real life, and they bored the pants off of me. I think most of us go into movies if not for pure escapism, than at least to watch people with far more interesting or screwed up lives than our own.

I don't know how accurate the scene of the child beauty pagent was in this movie. Perhaps the hand of Hollywood exaggeration is at work once again. But if half of what was shown in this movie is true, the people who run these beauty pagents and the parents who participate should all be locked away for child abuse.

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