Posted: 08/01/2006

Little Miss Sunshine

(2006)

by Hank Yuloff

About two-thirds of the way through Little Miss Sunshine we are treated to a one line delivery of the message of this film: “Do what you want, f*** the rest.”

They are usually called Road Pictures - people taken out of their normal routines who are on their way somewhere else who ultimately learn what Proust wrote many years ago, that it is the journey that fulfills the soul, not necessarily the end destination. There have been many famous comedy road pictures, the most obvious being the Bing Crosby-Bob Hopes flicks in the 40s, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969), American Graffiti (1973), The Blues Brothers (1980), National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983), Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987), the Indiana Jones adventures, Dumb and Dumber (1994), Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996), and Road Trip (2000). Add to this list, “Little Miss Sunshine.”

This is the story of the Hoover family. It features a failed motivational speaker Richard (Greg Kinnear), an honesty-at-all-cost mom, Sheryl (Toni Collette), her gay, suicidal brother, Frank (Steve Carell), a heroin snorting grandfather (Alan Arkin), Nietzsche-reading anger filled son, Dwayne (Paul Dano), and a slightly round would-be beauty-queen 7 year old, Olive (Abigail Breslin).

We join the family as they are about to take a trip to Huntington Beach, California from Arizona to support Olive in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. We find out that Richard is desperately trying to sell his 9-step program for success to a publisher, that Frank has just been jilted by his lover and failed at a suicide attempt, Dwayne is into the 9th month of his vow to remain silent until he makes it into the Air Force Academy, and grandpa has been kicked out of his retirement home for doing drugs.

What makes this film so believable is that none of the individual behaviors of the characters is so far out of norm that you do not believe it is possible for this to happen. They are all trying to find their way but having a hard time with it. Their faults and foibles are real and they are not that hard to imagine.

All of them could use a few dozen hours of couch-time with their HMO shrink, but when on a fluke Olive gets invited to compete in the pageant, they rally (sort-of) in support of her. There isn’t enough money for them to fly, so they pile into the 60’s vintage VW Microbus and hit the road for a three day trip. It is on this trip that the family will change in many ways and be brought together as they have never been before.

Filmed in 30 days during summer 2005, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE features the directorial debut of music video directors (and husband-and-wife team) Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who direct from a script by first time writer Michael Arndt. They are supported by great performances from the entire cast. Kinnear (As Good As It Gets) is great as Richard who is trying to keep it together and keep the faith in his own 9-step program. Steve Carell (40 Year Old Virgin), who I feel has been playing way too far gone to be funny dorks (see Will Farrell) is able to put away the comedian and be funny AND SMART as the #1 Proust Scholar in the United States. Arkin (Jakob the Liar, Firewall) is typically bombastic and edgy as the grandfather giving advice to his grandson that includes having sex with as many women as possible. That grandson is played by Dano (The Girl Next Door, Fast Food Nation). He does one of the best jobs in the film, playing opposite Arkin and Carell fantastically.

This film is not a one trick pony, but the one running joke that has the cast continually jump-starting the VW Bus consistently got laughs. The choice of the vehicle was brilliant as the VW became not only a shooting location for a large portion of the film, but another quirky cast member, taking them from one hilarious situation to another. The last stop, the pageant itself, was to me, a horror factory. And as I finish typing this review with my goddaughter on my lap, I can only hope she doesn’t see some Miss America contest like little Olive did and decide to wrap her feelings of self worth into a sash that says Miss Something Or Other. Holy shades of Jon Benet Ramsey, Batman!!!

Mark Little Miss Sunshine as one of my Top 10 films for the year. Don’t miss the Little Miss; it’s a possible Oscar winner for writing, directing and film.

As an aside, here are those 9-steps to becoming a winner:

1 Leaving Loserhood: Finding a new address in a Winner-Take-All World

2 Aspiration, Inspiration, Perspiration

3. No Hocus Pocus, Just Focus

4. Say no to the Negheads

5. Good Enough is Never Good Enough

6. Trust and Be Trusted

7. Think Big. Act Big…. Be Big

8. Reject Rejection

9. Refuse to Lose

Hank Yuloff is a co-founder and film critic in Encino.

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