Little Miss Sunshine [M]

Meet the Hoovers: one of the most endearing dysfunctional families in history. Father, Richard, is bankrupt and desperately trying to sell his motivational program…without success. Mother, Sheryl, is the pro-honesty backbone that supports the fractured family. Uncle Frank is the country’s pre-eminent Proust scholar who has recently failed an attempt at suicide. Grandpa is a foul-mouthed heroin addict, and brother Dwayne has taken a vow of silence until he reaches his goal of becoming a pilot. When youngest sibling, Olive gets selected to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in California, the fractured family gets grouped together to take a cross country drive. With a two-day drive ahead of them, everything that can go wrong will go wrong. 

Possibly the greatest comedy to come out of America in the last five years, Little Miss Sunshine makes it into my top ten favourite films of all time, simply because it’s that simple type of comedy that sees the heroes trying to achieve a very simplistic goal and having everything go against them in the process. With its simple story being moved forward by its memorable and eccentric characters, it’s a timeless comedy classic that you must see before you die. 

Meet the Hoovers: one of the most endearing dysfunctional families in history. Richard the father is trying to sell his nine step motivational program… without success and going bankrupt in the process. Sheryl the mother is the family’s pro-honesty primary breadwinner and emotional supporter. Sheryl’s brother, Uncle Frank, the country’s pre-eminent Proust scholar, comes to stay with the family after a failed suicide attempt. Grandpa is a foul-mouthed heroin addict who is teaching 7-year-old Olive her dance moves for her performances in beauty pageants. And Dwayne, Olive’s teenage brother, is hateful and has taken a vow of silence until he achieves his goal of becoming a pilot. When Olive gets selected to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, the entire family gets grouped together to take a cross country trip from Albuquerque to California. Deciding to drive all the way, the family faces a two-day journey and everything that can go wrong will go wrong. 

As I mentioned before, the film’s storyline is wonderfully simple and lends itself to heaps of comical interpretation. But the story itself is moved forward solely by its characters and the performances of its actors. I would be here forever typing if I were to rave about how brilliant each actor in this film was. Each character goes through their own journey of change until they find closure. Every performance was memorable and each actor had his or her turn of eclipsing every other person on the screen, making this a real actor’s movie. 

Starring Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Steve Carell (this is the best film that he’s done), Paul Dano, and Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine a fantastic film that causes the audience to experience a range of emotions including pity, empathy, loathing, love, support, motivation, and hysteria. Filled with broken buses, memorable characters, knockout performances, great music, a very funny script, and the most awesome dance routine of all time, it’s a film that you can watch five million times and never get tired of. Seriously, it’s one of the greatest comedies ever made in the history of cinema! I love this movie to bits!!! 

“Everyone pretend to be normal”