Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Picked up after a well-received showing at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is a low-budget comedy about a family road trip from Albuquerque to California. The story begins when young Olive (Abigail Breslin) is given a shot at the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, and manages to coerce her family into driving west in their worn-down VW van. Olive's father, Richard (Greg Kinnear), takes charge of the trip, while her mother, Sheryl (Toni Collette), brother Dwayne (Paul Dano), uncle Frank (Steve Carell), and eccentric grandfather (Alan Arkin) all come along for the ride. What follows resemble...
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s a budget-stricken version of PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES: seemingly endless (and hilarious) mishaps befall the family as they wind their way across the country. Couple this with the witty interplay between a well-drawn set of dysfunctional characters, and that's the LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE formula in a nutshell; all the audience needs to do is sit back and enjoy the ride.

The grainy texture of co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris's film may initially startle viewers unaccustomed to the indie film world. But its a testament to the cast and crew's efforts that the limitations imposed on the filmmakers are long forgotten by the end of the film. Any concerns about visual murkiness give way to belly laughs and bemusement as the road trip ends and the beauty pageant begins. Likely to have a broad appeal, Dayton and Faris's film resembles a version of NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION directed with the pithy eye of Todd Solondz (WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE), and it's to the movie's credit that it manages to successfully marry these two seemingly disparate worlds.
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When a pudgy, bespectacled seven-year-old, Olive (Abigail Breslin), voices her desire to take home the coveted Little Miss Sunshine crown at an upcoming beauty pageant, her wildly dysfunctional family sets out on an interstate road trip to ensure her a clear shot at realizing her dreams in former music video directorial team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' quirky feature debut, starring Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, and Toni Collette. Despite early career success as an outspoken motivational speaker, family patriarch Richard (Kinnear) continues to cling to his "Refuse to Lose" philosophy, much to the chagrin of ...
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his increasingly annoyed spouse, Sheryl (Collette). Add into the mix a Nietzsche-reading teenage son (Paul Dano) who has taken a vow of silence until he finds his fate as a fighter pilot; a horny, heroin-happy grandfather (Alan Arkin) with a penchant for creative profanity; and a suicidal genius (Carell) and Proust scholar still reeling about losing both his male lover and his MacArthur Foundation genius grant -- and the stage is set for a road trip in which sanity is sure to take the back seat.
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De zevenjarige Olive Hoover leeft in een bijzonder gezin. Haar vader Richard is een mislukte mental coach, haar broer Dwayne weigert te praten, haar oom Frank is homoseksueel en suïcidaal, haar grootvader Edwin is verslaafd aan cocaïne en haar moeder Sheryl begint ook langzamerhand door te draaien. Als Olive dan te horen krijgt dat ze mee mag doen aan de finale van de Little Miss Sunshine wedstrijd, besluit het hele gezin van Albuquerque naar Californië te reizen in hun oude Volkswagenbusje.

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