With the success of the show “Toddlers and
Tiaras” I now have even more appreciation for the 2006 film “Little Miss
Sunshine.” It follows a dysfunctional family travelling from New Mexico to
California so that their seven-year-old daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) can
participate in a beauty pageant. My favourite scene is when Uncle Frank (Steve
Carell) and older brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) step into the pageant hall. You
can actually count up to seven seconds before the two of them walk out of that
room. They’re not saying it, but you can tell they’re thinking it: “this is
wrong and we can’t let them do this to Olive.”
A major success at the 2006 Sundance Film
Festival, “Little Miss Sunshine” had a lot of good buzz by the time it expanded
to major theatres late in the summer. At that time I was just beginning to
learn about different film festivals so having read the good reviews, I was
curious to see the movie. I saw it while living at Sherbrooke University, at a
theatre that showed both independent and big budget movies. It was great seeing
with an audience, but I wish I had actually been at Sundance just to hear people’s
reaction to Olive’s dance and see which company was going to buy the
distribution rights. I should probably add that to my bucket list: attend
Sundance Film Festival.
Before the movie gets into gear, we meet
the cast, the Hoover family. Sheryl (Toni Colette) is the mother whose job,
like most mothers, is to keep the family together. Her husband Richard (Greg
Kinnear) is a motivational speaker/life coach, who has yet to hit it big with
his business, if you can call what he does a business. Their older son Dwayne
has taken a vow of silence and dreams of becoming an air-force pilot, probably
so he can fly away from his family. Even more depressing is Sheryl’s brother
Frank, who moves in after a failed suicide attempt.
The happiest person in the family is Olive,
who dreams of becoming a beauty queen. Her trainer is her grandpa Edwin (Alan
Arkin), a foul-mouthed World War II veteran who has a taste for pornography and
heroin. His reasoning is you would have to be crazy to do drugs when you’re
young, but you would have to be crazy not to do them when you’re old. I’ve been
to the geriatric ward at a hospital, and I wonder if he has a point. Either
way, Edwin’s training is about to be put to the test when Sheryl gets a call
telling her Olive has qualified for the Little Miss Sunshine beauty contest in
Redondo Beach, California.
Unfortunately the contest is in two days,
so their last minute plan is to pack the whole Hoover clan in their yellow Volkswagen
T2 Microbus. Their bus is almost a character on its own, with its little
quirks. When it breaks down, a surprising helpful garage employee tells them a
cheap solution would be to push the bus to a certain speed and then hit the
gas. Later the horn gets jammed, which can attract a lot of unwanted attention
when driving on the highway.
Along the way the family runs into various
obstacles that are more emotional than physical. Richard realises his plan for
his motivational speaking business may go up in smoke. Frank, whose mood slowly
improves, runs into the reason for his suicide attempt. Even Dwayne, who limits
his conversation to scribbled notes, reaches a boiling point when he realizes
he dream of joining the air force may never take off.
Yet this is still a comedy, and a pretty
uplifting one. Despite all of their problems, this family sticks together so
that Olive can make it to that contest. Once they do, you realize Olive doesn’t
fit in with the rest of the contestants. Whereas Olive is a little but pudgy,
all of the contestants are thin, covered in make-up, with shaved legs and
sprayed tans. By these standards, she seems way out of their leagues, but when
her music starts and she shows what Edwin taught her…my jaw dropped.
Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valeris Faris
show us characters that are not winning in life, but they are trying to make
the best of it and that should count for something. Screenwriter Michael Arndt
said he was inspired by a quote from then governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who
told a group of high school students how he despises losers. With their
crumbling business ideas, failed dreams, and unconventional looks, the Hoovers
may not live up to the standards of “winners,” but that’s not going to stop
them, or their yellow bus.
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