Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

8/10

Starring

Greg Kinnear

Steve Carell

Toni Collette

Alan Arkin

Abigail Breslin

Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris

Little Miss Sunshine is one of the best movies I have seen. The plot is well-designed to pull on your heartstrings, and the different surprises this movie packs are amazing. It was like the writers thought up every trick in the book to make a thrilling movie and then just dumped it all in here. This movie has comedy, tragedy, thriller-like scenes, mystery, and drama—all rolled into one.

What we have is an average family with dreams, each getting to see the reality of things. We don't see them become triumphant in the end, which is another amazing thing about this movie. Instead, we see them make peace with their differences and move on.

The great ensemble cast of this movie consists of Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano, and Abigail Breslin. Their lives are woven together as follows: Kinnear and Collette play the married couple Richard and Sheryl Hoover, respectively. They have two children: Dwayne (Dano), Sheryl’s son from a previous marriage, and Olive (Breslin), a child of both Richard and Sheryl. Then there’s Sheryl’s brother, Frank (Carell), who, at the start of the movie, is being released after being hospitalized for attempted suicide and tagged as unstable. Lastly, there’s Edwin (Arkin), Richard’s father, who is always speaking his mind and got kicked out of the retirement home for starting to use heroin.

Olive gets lucky and is called to participate in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California, but the family can’t afford to fly her there. They also have another problem—Frank can’t be left on his own, and Edwin has been Olive’s dance coach. So, the whole family decides to drive to California from Albuquerque. The movie then uses this journey to shed more light on all the characters. There’s no wasted time on flashbacks or anything; we just get to understand how weirdly wound up they all are. Little Olive, though, is the only innocent, lovely girl in the group, who just wants to be a beauty queen. Despite all the challenges, the family wants, by all means, to help her participate.

The movie is the directorial debut of the husband-and-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. When it comes to acting, this movie packs enough from seasoned actors to make all the emotions real enough to win you over. One thing I noticed in the movie is that Breslin looked bigger, which, after reading up on it, I found out was because she wore a padded suit to accomplish that.

The movie was a huge box office hit, making over $100 million on an $8 million budget. It won numerous awards, including two Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor.

Here’s a movie I’ll be seeing again. It’s worth it.