Reel Classics: ‘Little Miss Sunshine’

For this edi­tion of Reel Classics, I present to you the Hoover fam­i­ly from Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Sheryl Hoover is the moth­er of two chil­dren.  Her hus­band, Richard, is work­ing at being a suc­cess­ful moti­va­tion­al speak­er and life coach.  Sheryl’s teenage son, Dwayne, is from a pre­vi­ous mar­riage and has aspi­ra­tions to become a fight­er pilot after grad­u­at­ing from high school.  The youngest child, Olive, is the daugh­ter of Sheryl and Richard, and her dream is to win a beau­ty pageant.  Sharing the Hoover home is Richard’s father, Edwin, who has recent­ly moved in after leav­ing a retire­ment home.  The final mem­ber of this fam­i­ly is Sheryl’s broth­er Frank, who was recent­ly dis­charged from the hospital. 

Now that you know who they are, let me give you some insight into what they are.  Let’s begin with Edwin (Alan Arkin).  Edwin had been liv­ing in a nice retire­ment home, but was evict­ed due to his behav­ior.  He tends to use a lot of pro­fan­i­ty, and his behav­ior at the facil­i­ty often gets him in trou­ble.  However, it was snort­ing hero­in that got him “the boot.”  He has tak­en on the role of coach for young Olive in encour­ag­ing and prepar­ing her for the com­pe­ti­tions at the beau­ty pageants. 

Sheryl’s broth­er Frank (Steve Carell) is a schol­ar focused on the French writer Marcel Proust, is gay, and was recent­ly hos­pi­tal­ized after a sui­cide attempt fol­low­ing the breakup with a lover.  Richard (Greg Kinnear) is strug­gling to move for­ward in his career and has lit­tle patience for his broth­er-in-law.  Dwayne (Paul Dano) is obsessed with German philoso­pher Friedrich Nietzsche and has tak­en a vow of silence until he achieves his dream of being a fight­er pilot.  Olive (Abigail Breslin) is young, naïve, and opti­mistic, but does, at times, ques­tion whether she is pret­ty enough to win a beau­ty pageant.  Sheryl (Toni Collette) is in many ways the “glue” that holds this quirky fam­i­ly together. 

The Hoovers receive a phone call that Olive has qual­i­fied for com­pe­ti­tion in the “Little Miss Sunshine” beau­ty pageant to be held in Redondo Beach, California.  However, it is to be held in two days, and the fam­i­ly has to make plans for an imme­di­ate depar­ture.  All of the fam­i­ly will attend to sup­port Olive, and they pile into their yel­low Volkswagen bus and take off for California.  As it turns out, the 800-mile road trip is not an easy one for this quirky family.

Along the way, the fam­i­ly expe­ri­ences many ten­sion-filled moments, includ­ing Richard learn­ing that he has lost a con­tract that would have helped his busi­ness. Dwayne learns that because he is col­or­blind, he can­not become a fight­er pilot, and Edwin has a major health issue.  This is in addi­tion to mul­ti­ple mechan­i­cal prob­lems with the van, includ­ing the need to push it to start and an inces­sant horn honk, which leads to them being pulled over by the state police.  That scene pro­vides one of the best quotes from the film. 

Richard:  “Oh my God, I’m get­ting pulled over.  Everyone, just...pretend to be normal.” 

However, giv­en all these obsta­cles, the fam­i­ly is deter­mined to make it to Redondo Beach so Olive can real­ize her dream.

Overcoming obsta­cles and deter­mi­na­tion to help Olive reach the pageant she has long hoped for brings this fam­i­ly clos­er togeth­er.  And even giv­en Grandpa’s gruff and often pro­fane ways, we see the sin­cere love and affec­tion he has for his grand­daugh­ter and his desire to help her achieve her dream.  An exam­ple of his reas­sur­ances to her is seen when he address­es her con­cerns about los­ing the con­test.  He tells her, “A real los­er is some­one who’s so afraid of not win­ning they don’t even try.”  This isn’t a fairy-tale sto­ry where every­thing comes out per­fect at the end, but life isn’t real­ly like that anyway.

Little Miss Sunshine was released in 2006.  The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) describes the film as a dark com­e­dy.  Michael Arndt wrote the sto­ry, and he report­ed that it was inspired by actu­al events from his child­hood when his fam­i­ly, in a VW bus, had to dri­ve 600 miles with a bro­ken clutch.  In an inter­view from 2006 appear­ing in Hollywood Reporter, he stat­ed that his broth­er was “a depressed aca­d­e­m­ic who teach­es Proust” and “Everything that hap­pened with the car [in the film] hap­pened to my family.” 

Personal note: I, too, had many sim­i­lar expe­ri­ences in my VW Beetle.  I would park on a hill at times to roll down and get the car mov­ing, as I was expe­ri­enc­ing clutch issues.  It was a bro­ken clutch that led to my being here in Winchester.

At the time he was cast for the part of Frank,  Steve Carell was not well known in Hollywood. An arti­cle in Entertainment Weekly report­ed that the film’s pro­duc­ers were con­cerned he wasn’t expe­ri­enced enough for the role.  However, his appear­ance in The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and the pre­mière of the award-win­ning tele­vi­sion show The Office (2005) quick­ly reas­sured them and moti­vat­ed them to use him to pro­mote the film.  Other actors con­sid­ered ini­tial­ly for the role of Frank includ­ed Bill Murray and Robin Williams.  Robin Williams was also con­sid­ered for the role of Richard, along with Alec Baldwin, David Duchovny, and Ray Romano.  Although Alan Arkin won the role of Edwin, Donald Sutherland was also a lead­ing candidate.

In the film, the con­tes­tants appear­ing in the pageant—except Abigail Breslin—were all expe­ri­enced con­tes­tants in var­i­ous pageants.  They wore the same cos­tumes and make­up, per­form­ing the rou­tines they had done in their pre­vi­ous pageants. 

As the VW was a big part of the film, the movie stu­dio invit­ed VW bus own­ers to a screen­ing of the film at Vineland Drive-In Theater in City of Industry, California (locat­ed near Los Angeles), and 65 VW bus­es were in attendance. 

The movie was very well received by both crit­ics and audi­ences.  It was nom­i­nat­ed for four Academy Awards, includ­ing Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Alan Arkin), Best Supporting Actress (Abigail Breslin), and Best Original Screenplay (Michael Arndt).  It won Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor.  The sound­track for the film was also nom­i­nat­ed for a Grammy, with most of the music being per­formed by the band DeVotchKa. 

A review in the Los Angeles Times stat­ed, “Little Miss Sunshine hilar­i­ous­ly punc­tures the grotesque bub­ble of the com­pet­i­tive American spir­it in which ‘win­ners’ are rec­og­nized by their rig­or­ous abil­i­ty to con­form to the stan­dards imposed by the mar­ket, and ‘losers’ include any­one who won’t bow to its mighty will.”  BBC News described the film as “a win­ning blend of sophis­ti­ca­tion and silli­ness.”  Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus states, “Little Miss Sunshine suc­ceeds thanks to a strong ensem­ble cast...as well as a delight­ful­ly fun­ny script.”  The New York Times includ­ed it on its list of “The 100 Best Movies of the 21^st Century.”  The American Film Institute (AFI) iden­ti­fied Little Miss Sunshine as one of the ten best films of 2006.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates the film at 7.8 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a Critics Score of 91% and an Audience Score of 91%.  In search­ing my Roku device, I could find no free stream­ing sites, and unfor­tu­nate­ly, the Clark County Public Library does not have a copy of the film on the shelf (though I feel cer­tain they would get one if you ask). 

This is a very touch­ing film, even with its quirky fam­i­ly and pro­fane grand­pa.  The rela­tion­ship between Grandpa and Olive is mov­ing.  As Olive pre­pares to demon­strate her “moves” at the pageant, she looks out to the audi­ence and says, “I’d like to ded­i­cate this to my grand­pa, who showed me these moves.” 

The emcee of the pageant says, “Aww, that is so sweet.” It is indeed.

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), and Wikipedia.

If you enjoy these clas­sic movies, please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics,” where I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon.  Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed.  More infor­ma­tion about the next movie is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page, as well as the WinCity Voices Facebook page.