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 byJonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
Written byMichael Arndt
Produced byMarc Turtletaub
Peter Saraf
Albert Berger
Ron Yerxa
David Friendly
Michael Beugg (executive)
Jeb Brody (executive)
StarringGreg Kinnear
Toni Collette
Steve Carell
Abigail Breslin
Alan Arkin
Paul Dano
Distributed byFox Searchlight Pictures
Release dates
July 26, 2006
Running time
103 min.
LanguageEnglish
BudgetUS$8 million[1]

Little Miss Sunshine is a 2006 Academy Award-winning dramatic comedy film about a 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 Big Beach Films 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.

Plot summary

Little Miss Sunshine is the story of the Hoovers, a fictional 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 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 becoming a winner. Dwayne (Paul Dano), is an angst-ridden, Nietzsche-reading teenager who has taken a vow of silence and dedicated his life to joining the US 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.

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. To get Olive to the pageant, the family realizes that they have no viable alternative to packing 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); 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.

The finale takes place at the pageant, a disturbing scene in which sexualized 6- to 7-year-old girls with teased hair, capped teeth, eroticized movements, model swimsuits, and evening wear perform elaborate dance numbers. Olive, untrained in projecting the appearance of adult sensuality, much less gymnastic prowess, is out of place. The family reluctantly allows her to continue the competition; recognizing her daughter's out-of-placeness, Sheryl nevertheless insists to her worried husband and son: "we have to let Olive be Olive." 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 joyfully performs, oblivious to what the dance signifies. The tremendous irony in this scene is the outrage expressed by the audience and pageant judges to the sexual nature of Olive's performance. When the pageant director insists on Olive's immediate removal from the stage, the response of her family becomes a shining moment of triumphant mutual support and family solidarity in defending Olive's right to be herself. In the original screenplay the scene where Dwayne and Frank are talking on a pier was meant to be filmed on surfboards in the ocean. Dwayne also asks Frank what it was like when he tried to kill himself; this is dialogue is cut from the movie.

Cast

(in order of appearance)

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" and the Gordon Pogoda composition "Let It Go." 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.

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 May 2007, Little Miss Sunshine is ranked #147 in the IMDb Top 250, one of seven films from 2006 to reach the list.[13]

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
3. Best International Film of the Year
Sydney Film Festival record
1. Best International Film

Wins

Nominations

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]

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.

Production information

Template:Infobox movie certificates

  • Originally written as an East Coast road trip 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.
File:Ewlms.jpg
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]
  • 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. When she took her headphones off and asked what they were talking about, Arkin says "politics." Only when she saw the movie did she know what was being said.[18]

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.[19]

Parodies

Popular culture references

In the series finale of the HBO television drama The Sopranos, entitled Made in America, the film is seen playing in the hospital room of Silvio Dante during a visit from Tony Soprano in a comically incongruous moment.

References

  1. ^ a b c "Little Miss Sunshine at Box Office Mojo". Retrieved 2006-12-27.
  2. ^ Thompson, Anne (2006-01-27). "Some cold, hard facts from Sundance". Reuters/Hollywood Reporter on Yahoo! News Singapore website. Retrieved 2007-04-16.
  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. ^ Eric J. Lyman (2006-08-03). "Locarno opens with low-key launch". hollywoodreporter.com. Retrieved 2007-04-11.
  6. ^ Michael Medved. ""Little Miss Sunshine"". Retrieved 2006-11-18.
  7. ^ Joel Siegel (July 27, 2006). "Joel Siegel's Hollywood". Retrieved 2006-11-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ Claudia Puig. "These kids are golden". USAToday.com. Retrieved 2007-04-11.
  9. ^ Owen Gleiberman (July 26, 2006). "[[Entertainment Weekly]]". Retrieved 2007-01-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); URL–wikilink conflict (help)
  10. ^ Jim Ridley (July 25, 2006). "[[The Village Voice]]". Retrieved 2007-01-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); URL–wikilink conflict (help)
  11. ^ "[[National Review]]". February 26, 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-27. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); URL–wikilink conflict (help)
  12. ^ "Little Miss Sunshine at Rottentomatoes.com". Retrieved 2006-11-18.
  13. ^ "IMDb Top 250".
  14. ^ "Box Office Mojo". Retrieved 2006-11-28.
  15. ^ "Daily Box Office". July 30, 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  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. ^ INTERVIEW: Alan Arkin and Abigail Breslin in "Little Miss Sunshine" CineCon.com
  19. ^ SOS - Service Opportunities for Students: Rebecca Annitto SOSprinceton.org

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Little Miss Sunshine.
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