Title:  Little Miss Sunshine

Release Date:  2006

Nationality and Language: USA, English

Running time: 101 min

MPAA Rating: R

Distributor and Production Company: Fox Searchlight / Big Beach

Director; Writer: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris; wr Michael Arndt

Producer:

Cast:   Greg Kinnear, Abigail Breslin, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin, Toni Collette, Steve Carell

Technical: Full anamorphic 2:3 to 1

Relevance to DOASKDOTELL site:  satire, complementarity

A movie that starts with an allusion to those old Miss America pageants in Atlantic City, Bert Parks and all, and our smug ideas of womanhood and family friendly femininity, is rather like a symphony that starts on an accidental and then modulates. Richard (Greg Kinnear (“As Good As It Gets”) is giving his nine-step motivational speech to his sparse audience, and he is not supporting his dysfunctional family too well. But it opens things up for comedy quickly at the dinner table.

Frank (Steve Carell, “The 40 Year Old Virgin”, man-o-lantern, and Saturday Night Live host who brags that he has made it in the world) is a gay literature professor whose face looks alternatively youthful and wasted. He has tried to slit his wrists when a graduate student didn’t requite his love. Little Miss Sunshine Olive (Abigail Breslin) says, “What? You fell in love with a boy? That’s silly.” This is the famous scene in the previews and trailers. Dwayne (Paul Dano) is a mute 15-year-old who has sworn to silence and who communicates with handwritten notes. He reads Nietzche, and writes “I hate everybody.” But that is because everyone around is a loser, and he is forced to associate with them, to like them, to fight for their goals, rather than his, which is to become a military pilot. So we get to a central issue for the film’s satire: the problems centering around “seeing people as people” and accepting them in, rather than going down one’s own personal path.

Wife Sheryl (Toni Collette) forces Frank to sleep in the same room as Dwayne, and Dwayne is supposed to watch him. That’s an odd situation, to put an unstable middle aged gay man in the “protective custody” of an attractive (and very fit) underage teenage boy (Dano is 21).  Perhaps Sheryl has no other realistic choice, as Frank cannot safely be left to be alone. Yet nothing really comes of that, as the film must move quickly into real comedy. The comedy is foreshadowed by growling grandpa (Alan Arkin) when he snorts cocaine. Later, at a critical scene when Dwayne breaks down (below), however, Sheryl is not willing to leave her son in the desert with Dwayne when Dwayne wants to abandon the trip.

It is a challenge for the screenwriter to structure the story around sections and critical transitions, and to present the characters with almost insurmountable problems. This appears to be Arndt’s first film, and indeed he comes up with devious comic ideas—all with double social meanings that almost no one else (except maybe Ashton Kutcher) could think of. The family goes on a road trip in a yellow “vancredible” from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach, CA. where Abigail will enter the pageant. This misadventures pile up. The clutch fails, so the family has to start the car while moving in a team handbook exercise.   Then, in the first motel night, Olive finds grandpa dead, and they have to steal the body, Hitchcock style, from the hospital. More revelations will come, and Dwayne will be forced out of his silence when Olive makes a brutal but simple discovery that shows that Dwayne will never be medically qualified to be a military pilot. (Politically, this comports with the military’s argument supporting the DADT ban – life just isn’t fair, and a lot of people are excluded.) Finally they lumber into the contest, and Olive (and let us note that the film has shown her to be a bit plump) pulls off an act that gets the whole family arrested. She has dance moves, all right, and they are a match for Napoleon Dynamite’s. (Jon Heder could have been in this film, I think; but Dano is able to give a role like this an unusual bite; compare Dano in this film to his work in "The King" where he leaves a similar impression.)  Is it really “obscene” or even offensive? No. But as Dwayne points out (once he is talking), the contest is run by creeps, as Dwayne suddenly is ready to protect his little sister.

What a ride! The film is vicious satire, and some people say they were offended by some of the insuations of the film.

The credits give a Gregory Smith as a unit director, but (imdb) that is a different Gregory Smith from the young actor (who has an acting style similar to Dano).  This film should not be confused with the historical epic "Sunshine."

The arrest of former schoolteacher John Mark Karr in Thailand for the murder of JonBenet Ramsey in Colorado in 1996, shortly after the opening of this movie, seems like an odd coincidence, considering that the girl had performed in child pageants.

Tyler Mowery has a video Nov. 22, 2022 “This One Trick Could Fix Your Script” where he analyzes “Little Miss Sunshine”, link.   He thinks every movie should have a topic sentence (sort of like a logline) and that for this film, it is that a person should follow their own voice rather than the opinions of others.  Ayn Rand believed that!

The OH in Ohio (2006, Cyan/Ambush, dir. Billy Kent, 88 min, R) is a quirky regional comedy taking place in "the Mistake by the Lake." The Buckeye State is where the midwest begins, but it is far enough east (above Georgia) to be well into the Eastern time zone. Oh, OK, Cleveland has had a comeback, with gleaming new skyscrapers, the condos and discos in the flats, and Jacobs Field, for the Indians, all of which appear in this widescreen movie. (Oh, recently, the Indians whacked the Royals there 13-0, scoring 11 times in the first inning). The park looks pretty interesting. And so do some of the imaginary things, like swimming pool salesman Danny Devito and his waterslide. Priscilla Chase (Parker Posey) has a job bringing companies to the New Cleveland (which, like Baltimore, is not missing) and is married to a biology teacher Jack (Paul Rudd, who looks just a little pudgy). Jack is having a relationship with an 18-year-old (thankfully) student (Mischa Barton). He sleeps in a garage apartment. So Pris goes on an adventure of her own, to explore her own sexuality in the most primitive terms, using all kinds of toys, experimenting with lesbianism.  In the meantime, Jack's self-discovery actually leads him to consider renting an apartment in The Manly Arms, of all places. The experimentation becomes contagious. The talk is graphic, but what the camera shows is not. Some of the scenes don't till the 2.3:1 screen.