Little Miss Sunshine

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For the children's book character, see Little Miss Sunshine (children's books character).
Little Miss Sunshine

Movie poster for Little Miss Sunshine
Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
Produced by Michael Beugg (executive)
Jeb Brody (executive)
Marc Turtletaub
Peter Saraf
Scott Corwon
David Friendly
Ron Yerxa
Albert Berger
Written by Michael Arndt
Starring Greg Kinnear
Toni Collette
Steve Carell
Abigail Breslin
Alan Arkin
Paul Dano
Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release date(s) July 26, 2006
Running time 103 min.
Language English
Budget US$8 million[1]
Official website
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Little Miss Sunshine is a 2006 Academy Award-winning dramatic comedy film about a dysfunctional family's road trip to a child beauty pageant. The film, which was directed by the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, was nominated for a Golden Globe and won the Best Feature — World Cinema Audience Award at the 2006 Sydney Film Festival. Produced by IMPACTS Entertainment on a budget of $8 million,[1] distribution rights for the film were bought by Fox Searchlight Pictures for $10 million,[2] which is reported to have been one of the biggest deals ever made in the festival's history.[3] The movie was released in the United States on July 26, 2006,[4] and had its continental European premiere on August 12 at the 2006 Locarno International Film Festival.[5]

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture and won two: Best Original Screenplay for Michael Arndt and Best Supporting Actor for Alan Arkin. It also won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Little Miss Sunshine is the story of the Hoovers, a fictional dysfunctional family from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The characters are introduced in the opening sequences: Sheryl Hoover (Toni Collette), a stressed and over-worked mother of two, picks up her brother Frank (Steve Carell) at a hospital after the depressed, gay Proust scholar has recovered from a failed suicide attempt. Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear) is a manic go-getter striving to sell his motivational nine-step technique to become a winner. Dwayne (Paul Dano), is an angst-ridden, avowedly mute, Nietzsche-reading teenager who has dedicated his life to joining the Air Force Academy in order to become a test pilot. Richard's father, Edwin (Alan Arkin), recently evicted from a retirement home for snorting heroin, is shown to have a strong bond with his seven-year-old granddaughter Olive (Abigail Breslin), and coaches her to perform in a child beauty pageant.

After an expository dinner sequence, Olive learns she has qualified for the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant that is being held in Redondo Beach, California in two days. Olive is asked to be in Little Miss Sunshine after placing second in another beauty pageant. As soon as Olive hears the news she gets up from the table and starts screaming with joy, hurrying down stairs to keep practicing her routine that her grandpa has been teaching her. While Olive is partying downstairs her parents are forced to plan how they are going to get there. Since their relatives are out of town and the family cannot afford other alternatives, the family realizes they must pack all six family members into their yellow Volkswagen Type 2 mini-bus for a two-day road trip to California.

The family's tensions play out on the highway and at stops along the way, amidst the aging VW van's mechanical problems. The characters suffer setbacks: Richard's hopes for his motivational technique business sputter out; Frank encounters his ex-boyfriend who is now dating Frank's scholarly rival; Grandpa dies from a heroin overdose during the family's overnight stay at a motel; Dwayne discovers that he is color-blind, which means he cannot become a pilot (this causes him to speak his first line of the movie - 'fuck'); and Sheryl's obsessive manner impels her to attempt to keep everyone, including herself, calm and sane. Amidst all this, the family races to get to the pageant on time, traveling in the VW van with a broken clutch (requiring them to push-start it after every stop) and a faulty horn that won't stop honking on its own.

The finale takes place at the pageant, in which 6- to 7-year-old girls model swimsuits and evening wear, as well as performing elaborate dance numbers. Olive is out-classed by the other girls' emulation of Barbie dolls, but the family reluctantly allows her to continue the competition and pursue her dream. In the talent portion, Olive scandalizes and horrifies the audience and pageant judges with a striptease-style burlesque performance (to the tune of Rick James' "Super Freak"), taught to her by Grandpa, which she performs unaware of its risque nature. When her family rises to defend her from the pageant organizers and shield her from the humiliation of being removed from the stage, the ensuing chaos brings the dysfunctional family together in a shining moment of triumph over all of the many obstacles that littered their collective journey spanning time and interstate highways. By dancing on stage together they find what is really important in life; each other.

To placate the irate pageant organizers, the family gladly agrees to their demand that Olive never ever participate in another beauty pageant in the state of California. They return to their van, push-start it, jump one by one into the side door, and head home smiling.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cast

(in order of appearance)

  • Bryan Cranston .... Stan Grossman
  • John Walcutt .... Doctor #2
  • Paula Newsome .... Linda
  • Dean Norris .... State Trooper McCleary
  • Beth Grant .... Pageant official Jenkins
  • Wallace Langham .... Kirby
  • Lauren Shiohama .... Miss California pagent winner
  • Mary Lynn Rajskub .... Pageant assistant Pam
  • Jerry Giles .... Funeral home worker
  • Geoff Meed .... Biker dad
  • Matt Winston .... Pageant M.C.
  • Joan Schneckel .... Judge
  • Cassandra Ashe .... Girl in hallway
  • Mel Rodriguez .... Officer Martinez
  • Nathaniel Robinson.... Extra #425


  • Alexandria Alaman, Alissa Anderegg, Brittany Baird, Cambria Baird, Brenae Bandy, Kristen Holaas, Maliah Hudson, Destry Jacobs, Lindsey Jordan, Shane Murphy, Annabelle Roberts, Sydni Stevenson-Love, Nicole Stoehr, Lauren Yee .... Pageant contestants

[edit] Soundtrack

Main article: Little Miss Sunshine (soundtrack)

The score for Little Miss Sunshine was written by the Denver band DeVotchKa and composer Mychael Danna. Performed by DeVotchKa, much of the music was adapted from the pre-existing DeVotchKa songs 'How it ends,' 'The Enemy Guns,' 'You Love Me,' (from the DeVotchKa record How it ends) and 'La Llorona,' (from the DeVotchKa record Una Volta). Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris were introduced to DeVotchKa's music after hearing the song 'You Love Me' on LA's KCRW radio station. Award winning composer Mychael Danna was brought in to help arrange the pre-existing material and collaborate with DeVotchKa on new material for the film. Both DeVotchKa and Mychael Danna received Grammy nominations for their work on the soundtrack for this film.

The soundtrack also contains songs by Sufjan Stevens, Tony Tisdale, Rick James. Also included is the Barry Upton/Gordon Pogoda composition "You've Got Me Dancing." The Little Miss Sunshine score was not eligible for Academy Award consideration due to the percentage of material derived from already written DeVotchKa songs, but DeVotchKa's originally written end title song 'Til the End of Time' was short listed by many trade writers as a possible Song of the Year Academy nominee. 'Til the End of Time' was nominated for Best Original Song by the International Press Academy's Satellite Awards and by the Society of Online Award Prognosticators.

[edit] Reviews

Michael Medved gave Little Miss Sunshine four stars (out of four) saying that "…this startling and irresistible dark comedy counts as one of the very best films of the year…" and that directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the movie itself, and actors Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin and Steve Carell deserve Oscar nominations.[6]

Joel Siegel gave Little Miss Sunshine a rarely awarded 'A' rating, saying that "Orson Welles would have to come back to life for this not to make my year-end Top 10 list."[7] Breslin's depiction of Olive Hoover has also moved many critics, with USA Today's Claudia Puig saying "if Olive had been played by any other little girl, she would not have affected us as mightily as it did."[8]

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a C rating, calling the characters "walking, talking catalogs of screenwriter index-card data."[9] Jim Ridley of The Village Voice called the movie a "rickety vehicle that travels mostly downhill" and a "Sundance clunker."[10] Anna Nimouse of the National Review writes that the "film is praised as a 'feel-good' film; perhaps for moviegoers who like bamboo under their fingernails. If you are miserable, then Little Miss Sunshine is the film for you."[11]

Dustin Hoffman (an Oscar-winning actor), on the December 22, 2006 telecast of the Tonight Show (while guesting with Abigail Breslin) said, "It's one of the best performances that I have seen in my entire life."

The film has a "92% fresh" rating from critics and 96% fresh from users at Rotten Tomatoes.[12]

As of March 2007, Little Miss Sunshine is ranked #186 in the IMDb Top 250, one of only seven films from 2006 to reach the list.[13]

[edit] Awards

Academy Awards record
1. Best Supporting Actor, Alan Arkin
2. Best Original Screenplay
BAFTA Awards record
1. Best Supporting Actor, Alan Arkin
2. Best Original Screenplay

[edit] Wins

[edit] Nominations

[edit] Box office

  • Little Miss Sunshine had the highest per theater average gross of all films shown in the United States every day for the first 16 days of its release.[14]
  • On July 29, 2006, the first Saturday after its initial limited release, Little Miss Sunshine earned a $20,335 per theater average gross.[15]
  • As of February 22, 2007, Little Miss Sunshine has made $59,766,008 in the U.S. and $94,323,893 total internationally.[1]

[edit] DVD info

The DVD was released on December 19, 2006. It includes a dual-disc widescreen/full screen format, two commentaries, four alternate endings, and a music video by DeVotchKa.

[edit] Production information

This section is currently a list, and needs cleanup.
A good lead should be written for this, and/or the entire section converted to prose. Once this task is complete, please remove this message. (talk, help, how to edit)
  • Originally written as an East Coast roadtrip movie from Maryland to Florida, it was shifted to a journey from New Mexico to California due to shooting issues.
  • Although the role of the suicidal uncle was originally written for Bill Murray and there was studio pressure for Robin Williams, the part eventually went to Steve Carell.
  • Five identical Volkswagen Type 2s were used during filming.
  • The movie was shot in sequence.
  • The script was purchased from first time screenwriter Michael Arndt for $250,000.
  • No first-unit filming was done in New Mexico; dialogue scenes were actually shot in southern California. This explains why the family eats take-out chicken in a bucket from Dinah's Family Restaurant, located in Los Angeles. Some bridging scenes were shot outside of California for the sake of atmosphere, with stand ins in the van.
  • The scenes that took place in Redondo Beach, California were actually filmed at an oceanside Holiday Inn near the Ventura Pier in Ventura, California. There are no freeways that lead to the beach, although U.S. 101 runs parallel to the coastline at that point.
  • Many of the freeway scenes were filmed on California State Route 14.
  • The scene in the gas station was filmed in the Chevron station on Lyons Road in Santa Clarita, California.
Greg Kinnear, Abigail Breslin, and Steve Carell featured on the August 11, 2006 cover of Entertainment Weekly.
Greg Kinnear, Abigail Breslin, and Steve Carell featured on the August 11, 2006 cover of Entertainment Weekly.
  • Although known to Comedy Central viewers for many years as a correspondent on the high-rated satirical news program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Steve Carell, at the time he was cast for Little Miss Sunshine, was a relative unknown in Hollywood. According to an article in Entertainment Weekly,[16] the producers of the film worried that he wasn't a big enough star and didn't have much acting experience. However, between the time the film was shot in the summer of 2005 and its release in the summer of 2006, Carell became a huge success as the star of the high-grossing film The 40-Year-Old Virgin in August 2005 and the leading character of the popular NBC Emmy-winning television series The Office, which premiered in March 2005 and for which Carell won a Golden Globe in 2006 for best lead actor in a comedy television series. In the span of just one year, Carell had become such a star that the producers had gone from protesting his casting to tapping him to do prominent promotion for the film.
  • All the girls acting as participants in the beauty pageant, except Abigail Breslin, were veterans of real beauty pageants. They looked the same and performed the same acts as they had in their real-life pageants.[17]
  • Greg Kinnear and Paul Dano also star in the 2006 movie adaptation of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation.
  • On July 25, 2006 Fox Searchlight Pictures invited VW bus owners to a screening of Little Miss Sunshine at Vineland Drive-In theater in City of Industry, California. 65 VW buses were present at the event.[18]
  • The license plate of Frank's academic and romantic rival, Larry Sugarman (the #2 Proust scholar), reads "lost time", a reference to Marcel Proust's principal novel À la recherche du temps perdu or In Search of Lost Time.
  • Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris had previously directed the "1979" music video by The Smashing Pumpkins. The total of Frank's purchase at the convenience store is $19.79. Additionally, the "1979" video features a scene in a convenience store.
  • Bryan Cranston's character in Little Miss Sunshine has the same name - Stan Grossman - as Larry Brandenburg's character in the film Fargo.
  • Paul Dano's character has the same given name - Dwayne - as one of the main characters in the Kurt Vonnegut novel Breakfast of Champions; in addition, the referenced main character has the family name "Hoover."
  • A scene shot in Phoenix, Arizona, as the family leaves the area for California, shows the family's bus traveling eastbound on the Arizona State Route 101, crossing beneath the juncture of the Interstate 17 freeway. In reality, they would be headed in the wrong direction.
  • Most of the beauty pageant interiors were shot at the Radisson in Culver City. It is across the street from Dinah's, a restaurant where the interiors for the 'ice cream' scene were shot. They use menus from "Pann's", another restaurant a few miles away (on La Tijera).
  • Screenwriter Steven Conrad did an uncredited draft while the film was at Focus Features. The only thing kept was Richard's trip to meet Stan Grossman. [19]
  • Dayton and Faris directed a sketch in Mr. Show episode 404, Rudy Will Await Your Foundation, about a prenatal beauty pageant, one of many location pieces they filmed for the show. It featured one character, played by Becky Thyre, very similar to the pageant director in Little Miss Sunshine.
  • In one driving scene, Olive is shown playing with the same happy face puzzle that the main contestant played with in the 2001 HBO documentary Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen.
  • The first name of the Grandpa — Edwin — is revealed only once in the film.
  • Frank's last name is never written in the script, but in the movie, seen on a door, it is Ginsberg.
  • During the scenes in the van in which Alan Arkin's character was swearing excessively, Abigail had her headphones on and could not hear the lines. Only when she saw the movie did she know what was being said.[20]

[edit] Dedication

The dedication at the end of the movie is for Rebecca Annitto, niece of Peter Saraf, a producer of the film. Rebecca played an extra in both the diner scene and convenience store scene. Rebecca was killed in a car accident on September 14th, 2005.[21]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Little Miss Sunshine at Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2006-12-27.
  2. ^ Broken link, as of 2006-11-17.
  3. ^ Senh Duong, Rotten Tomatoes, SUNDANCE: Searchlight Spends Big For “Little Miss Sunshine”, January 21, 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-17.
  4. ^ Box Office Mojo Broken link, as of 2006-11-17.
  5. ^ Broken link, as of 2006-11-17.
  6. ^ Michael Medved. "Little Miss Sunshine". Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
  7. ^ Joel Siegel (July 27, 2006). Joel Siegel's Hollywood. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
  8. ^
  9. ^ Owen Gleiberman (July 26, 2006). Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved on 2007-01-18.
  10. ^ Jim Ridley (July 25, 2006). The Village Voice. Retrieved on 2007-01-18.
  11. ^ National Review (February 26, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-03-27.
  12. ^ Little Miss Sunshine at Rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
  13. ^ IMDb Top 250.
  14. ^ Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2006-11-28.
  15. ^ Daily Box Office (July 30, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
  16. ^ Entertainment Weekly, "Why everyone's buzzing about 'Little Miss Sunshine'" August 3, 2006. Retrieved November 18, 2006.
  17. ^ Kim Voynar, "Interview with 'Little Miss Sunshine' Directors Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton", last updated 2006-09-12. Retrieved November 18, 2006.
  18. ^ Fox Searchlight Pictures, "Slide show", retrieved November 18, 2006.
  19. ^ Creative Screenwriting Magazine's, Pursuit of Happyness podcast, retrieved December 28, 2006.
  20. ^ INTERVIEW: Alan Arkin and Abigail Breslin in "Little Miss Sunshine" CineCon.com
  21. ^ SOS - Service Opportunities for Students: Rebecca Annitto SOSprinceton.org

[edit] Parody

[edit] External links

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