Little Miss Sunshine – 2006 – Losers …. With Spirit

I bought the DVD of this film about 12 years ago and it was in its original cellophane wrapping to date. For some strange reason, I was too lazy to see it. I suppose everything happens at the right time.

Little Miss Sunshine is simply a bittersweet, charming tale of a bunch of Sad Sacks who go on a road trip and then – as expected – discover life. Or themselves.

The family of misfits are Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear), who is selling a Self-Improvement program with few takers. Sheryl (Toni Collette) is the overworked, harassed woman juggling egos, budgets, emotions and her own life. Frank (Steve Carell), Sheryl’s gay brother, is recovering from a suicide attempt and for whom Sheryl has taken responsibility. Edwin Hoover (Alan Arkin), Richard’s cranky father, dotes on his granddaughter Olive (Abigail Breslin), who is hoping to make it big in the “Little Miss Sunshine” contest in California. Dwayne (Paul Dano) is sworn to silence and is preparing for his Air Force entrance test.

Everyone loves Olive, so no one wants to break her heart even though everyone feels she doesn’t have a chance of entering the contest, leave alone winning it. The family gets a phone call confirming that Olive is eligible to participate in the competition. Hence, they drive from New Mexico to California in a clapped-out Volkswagen van that has a mind of its own and refuses to start or stop on command.

Thus starts the road journey, and as with any trip, things start going wrong, and everyone discovers something about themselves that they didn’t know was possible.

Road movies have a specific set formula that, by the end, everyone’s issues are resolved or they find a new direction.  That as they say is the formula but …

Seriously?

How can these no-hopers hope to find any resolution when they aren’t even trying? How can Olive take part in the high end glitzy “beauty contest” where 8- and 10-year-olds walk and strut their stuff like professional models with the same plastic smiles, rehearsed routines that smack of “playing to the gallery” and total artifice in each and every aspect of the contest? How can Olive, with her chunky glasses and lousy hair, ever hope to make the title? Will the bunch of no-hopers be able to support her? What about grandpa Hoover – what are those mysterious moves that he has been teaching Olive and which she used to practice only in front of him and never in front of her family?

The film is hilarious. Bittersweet. Charming. Comic. Sad.

I am not including screenshots as almost every screenshot gives away something and will make do with a pic from the Net about the no-hopers at a motel.

Above all, it is about the human spirit that refuses to give up and struggles against all odds to win or die trying.

Everyone is in great form but Toni Collette and Abigail Breslin as Olive, simply steal everyone’s thunder.

Made on a modest budget of 8 million dollars, the film deservedly became a whopping hit cleaning up the US box office with 59 million dollars and worldwide 101 million dollars (Source : https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0449059/?ref_=bo_se_r_1)

It’s easy to see why. We can identify with these universal characters as we see humans struggling with dignity against all odds  The film is available online on Disney Hotstar
https://www.hotstar.com/in/movies/little-miss-sunshine/1770000746

Script – 5 out of 5

Story – 5 out of 5

Direction – 5 out of 5

Photography – 4 out of 5

Total – 4.8 out of 5