Little Miss Sunshine

 

Little Miss Sunshine 2006

• Director: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Steve Carrell, Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, Abigail Breslin, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Steve Carrell – Life’s Too Short, Crazy Stupid Love, Dan in Real Life
• Toni Collette – Knives Out, Hereditary, Unlocked, Imperium, A Long Way Down, Enough Said, Mental, Fright Night, The Dead Girl, Night Listener, In Her Shoes, The Hours, About a Boy, Hotel Splendide, Sixth Sense, Velvet Goldmine, Muriel’s Wedding
• Greg Kinnear – As Good As It Gets, You Have Mail
• Abigail Breslin – Zombieland 1&2, August Osage County
• Paul Dano – 12 Years a Slave, Looper, Taking Woodstock, There Will Be Blood
• Alan Arkin – The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Sunshine Cleaning, Gattaca, Grosse Pointe Blank, Glengarry Glen Ross, Edward Scissorhands, Catch 22, Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming
• Why? Good film.
• Seen:  Once before. Now 11 October 2022      

       A chubby little bespectacled girl Olive (Breslin) practices winning the Miss America Contest in front of the TV. Her dad Richard (Kinnear) enthusiastically lectures on how to be a winner to a less than half-full class of bored students. Her foul-mouthed sex-crazy grandpa (Arkin) snorts coke. Her brother Dwayne whose hero is Nietzsche has sullenly taken a vow of silence. Her mother Sheryl (Collette) frantically puffs on a cigarette while promising her husband on the phone that she isn’t smoking and fetches her suicidal brother Frank (Carrell) from the hospital because his insurance won’t pay.

       This family sets out to the Little Miss Sunshine contest so that Olive can perform the routine Grandpa is coaching her on.

       As Dwayne writes in a note to Frank, ‘Welcome to hell.’

       It’s a hilarious, heart-warming, tragic and twisted odyssey that highlights the absurdity, denigration, hypocrisy, and allure of beauty pageants. As Dwayne says, ‘Life is one fucking beauty contest after another.’ When he starts talking again. 

4 1/2 * of 5