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Little Miss Sunshine

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For the children's book character, see Little Miss Sunshine (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
August 18, 2006
Running time
103 min.
LanguageEnglish
BudgetUS$8 million[1]

Template:Infobox movie certificates Little Miss Sunshine is an Academy Award winning dramatic comedy film about a family's road trip to a children's beauty pageant. The film was directed by the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris and was produced by Big Beach Films on a budget of $8 million.[1] Its distribution rights were bought by Fox Searchlight Pictures for $10 million,[2], reportedly one of the biggest deals ever made in the history of the Sundance Film Festival.[3] The movie was released in the United States on August 18, 2006,[4] and had its continental European premiere on August 12, 2006 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

Sheryl Hoover (Toni Collette) is an overworked mother of two. Her brother Frank (Steve Carell) is a homosexual Proust scholar, temporarily living at home with the family after having attempted suicide in the wake of a failed relationship. Sheryl's husband Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a Type A personality striving to help support the family as a motivational speaker and life coach. Dwayne (Paul Dano), Sheryl's son from a previous marriage, is a Nietzsche-reading teenager who has taken a vow of silence until he can accomplish his dreams of becoming a test pilot. Richard's father, Edwin (Alan Arkin), recently evicted from a retirement home for snorting heroin, lives with the family; he is close to his seven-year-old granddaughter Olive (Abigail Breslin).

Olive learns she has qualified for the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant that is being held in Redondo Beach, California in two days. The parents and Edwin, who has been coaching her, want to support her, and Frank and Dwayne cannot be left alone, so the whole family goes. Because they have little money they go on a 800-mile road trip in their yellow Volkswagen T2 Microbus.

Family tensions play out on the highway and at stops along the way, amidst the aging VW van's mechanical problems. When the van breaks down early on, they learn that they must push the van until it is moving at about 20 mph before it is put into gear, at which point they have to run up to the side door and jump in. Later, the van's horn malfunctions and begins honking continuously. The family suffers setbacks: Richard loses a big deal that would have jump-started his motivational technique business; Frank, in a convenience store buying pornography at Edwin's request, encounters the ex-boyfriend whose actions had prompted his suicide attempt; Edwin dies from a heroin overdose during the family's stay at a motel; they smuggle the body out of the hospital and take it illegally to California because they are in a hurry and they are not allowed to leave it behind for a while. Dwayne discovers that he is color-blind, which means he cannot become a pilot (a realization that prompts him to break his silence); and Sheryl's obsessive manner impels her to attempt to keep everyone, including herself, calm and sane.

The climax takes place at the pageant, which features young hypersexualized girls with teased hair and capped teeth, wearing adult-like swimsuits and evening wear and performing elaborate dance numbers. Olive, untrained in beauty pageant conventions, is evidently out of place. Recognizing that Olive is a fish out of water whose feelings could really get hurt, the family considers withdrawing her from the competition; Sheryl nevertheless insists that they have to "let Olive be Olive" and participate.

In the talent portion of the pageant, the hitherto-unrevealed dance that Grandpa Edwin had choreographed for his granddaughter is revealed: To the tune of Rick James' "Super Freak," Olive scandalizes and horrifies almost all of the audience and pageant judges with a burlesque performance that she joyfully performs, as oblivious to the subtext behind the dance as the other contestants were to the provocative costumes and heavy makeup they were wearing.

When the pageant director approaches Sheryl and Richard to insist on the immediate removal of Olive from the stage, they, along with Frank and Dwayne, instead join Olive on the stage and dance alongside her.

The family is next seen outside the hotel's security office. They are free to go on condition that Olive never take part in a beauty pageant in California ever again. They pile into the van and, with the horn still honking, smash through the barrier of a toll booth that the pageant official had stopped at, laughing together as they go. The movie cuts to black with the horn, still broken, sounding as the family heads back to their home in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Cast

(in order of appearance)

Main cast:

Supporting cast:

Score and 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," and "You Love Me" from the DeVotchKa record How It Ends and "La Llorona" from Una Volta.

Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris were introduced to DeVotchKa's music after hearing the song "You Love Me" on L.A.'s KCRW radio station.[citation needed] 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 Danna received 2007 Grammy nominations for their work on the soundtrack.

The soundtrack also contains two songs by Sufjan Stevens ("No Man's Land" and "Chicago"), and songs by Tony Tisdale ("Catwalkin'"), and Rick James ("Super Freak").[6] According to one of the film's DVD commentary tracks (the one including writer Michael Arndt), "Super Freak", the source music danced to by Olive during the "Little Miss Sunshine" talent competition, was introduced during post-production. Arndt's screenplay had called for Prince's song "Peach"; during filming, the ZZ Top song "Gimme All Your Lovin'" was used.

The Little Miss Sunshine score was not eligible for Academy Award consideration due to the percentage of material derived from already written DeVotchKa songs[citation needed]. The DeVotchka song "Til the End of Time" did receive a nomination for a 2006 Satellite Award as Best Original Song.[7]

Two additional songs in the movie were written by Gordon Pogoda - "Let It Go" and "You've Got Me Dancing" (the latter of which he co-wrote with Barry Upton), which are featured during the pageant scenes near the end of the film.

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.[8]
  • On July 29, 2006, the first Saturday after its initial limited release, Little Miss Sunshine earned a $20,335 per-theater average gross.[9]
  • As of February 22, 2007, Little Miss Sunshine has made $59,766,008 in the U.S. and $94,323,893 total internationally.[1]

Reviews

The film has a "92% fresh" rating from critics and 96% fresh from users at Rotten Tomatoes.[10]

File:Ewlms.jpg
Kinnear, Breslin, and Carell on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

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.[11]

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."[12] 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." [13]

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a C rating, calling the characters "walking, talking catalogs of screenwriter index-card data."[14] Jim Ridley of The Village Voice called the movie a "rickety vehicle that travels mostly downhill" and a "Sundance clunker."[15] Anna Nimouse of 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."[16]

Awards

DVD release

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

Production information

  • The film was 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.[citation needed]
  • Although the role of the suicidal uncle was originally written for Bill Murray[citation needed], and there was studio pressure for Robin Williams[citation needed], the part eventually went to Steve Carell.
  • The script was purchased from first-time screenwriter Michael Arndt for only $250,000.[citation needed]
  • Although known to Comedy Central viewers for many years as a correspondent on the highly-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,[17] 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 (summer 2005) and its release a year later, Carell became a huge success as the star of the high-grossing film The 40-Year-Old Virgin and the leading character of the popular television series The Office.
  • 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.[18]
  • 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.[19]
  • Rebecca Annitto, the niece of producer Peter Saraf and an extra in scenes set in the diner and the convenience store, was killed in a car accident on September 14, 2005.[20] The film was dedicated to her.

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. ^ Little Miss Sunshine (Original Soundtrack) at AllMusic
  7. ^ The 11th Annual SATELLITE™ Awards Nominees from the International Press Academy website
  8. ^ "Box Office Mojo". Retrieved 2006-11-28.
  9. ^ "Daily Box Office". July 30, 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ "Little Miss Sunshine at Rottentomatoes.com". Retrieved 2006-11-18.
  11. ^ Michael Medved. ""Little Miss Sunshine"". Retrieved 2006-11-18.
  12. ^ Joel Siegel (July 27, 2006). "Joel Siegel's Hollywood". Retrieved 2006-11-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ Claudia Puig. "These kids are golden". USAToday.com. Retrieved 2007-04-11.
  14. ^ Owen Gleiberman (July 26, 2006). "[[Entertainment Weekly]]". Retrieved 2007-01-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); URL–wikilink conflict (help)
  15. ^ Jim Ridley (July 25, 2006). "[[The Village Voice]]". Retrieved 2007-01-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); URL–wikilink conflict (help)
  16. ^ "[[National Review]]". February 26, 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-27. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); URL–wikilink conflict (help)
  17. ^ Entertainment Weekly, "Why everyone's buzzing about 'Little Miss Sunshine'" August 3, 2006. Retrieved November 18, 2006.
  18. ^ Kim Voynar, "Interview with 'Little Miss Sunshine' Directors Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton", last updated 2006-09-12. Retrieved November 18, 2006.
  19. ^ INTERVIEW: Alan Arkin and Abigail Breslin in "Little Miss Sunshine" CineCon.com
  20. ^ SOS - Service Opportunities for Students: Rebecca Annitto, (her family and friends established an XWiki site to complete her wish of a Web site dedicated for helping teens to be volunteers), from www.sosprinceton.org
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