LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
Year: 2006
USA: Fox Searchlight Pictures
UK: Twentieth Century Fox
Cast: Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, Alan Arkin, Marc Turtletaub, Jill Talley, Brenda Canela, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Chuck Loring, Justin Shilton, Gordon Thomson, Steven Christopher Parker, Bryan Cranston, John Walcutt, Paula Newsome, Dean Norris, Beth Grant, Wallace Langham, Lauren Shiohama, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Jerry Giles, Geoff Meed, MC Matt Winston, Joan Scheckel, Casandra Ashe, Mel Rodriguez, Alexandria Alaman, Alissa Anderegg, Brittany Baird, Cambria Baird, Brenae Bandy, Kristen Holaas, Maliah Hudson, Destry Jacobs, Lindsey Jordan, Shane Murphy, Annabelle Robert,s Sydni Stevenson-Love, Nicole Stoehr, Lauren Yee
Directors: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
Country: USA
USA & UK: 99 mins
USA Rated: R for language, some sex and drug content
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong language and drug use
USA Release Date: 18 August 2006
USA Release Date: 11 August 2006 (Limited Release - wider)
USA Release Date: 26 July 2006 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 8 September 2006
Synopsis
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is an American family road comedy that shatters the mold. Brazenly satirical and yet deeply human, the film introduces audiences to one of the most endearingly fractured families in recent cinema history: the Hoovers, whose trip to a pre-pubescent beauty pageant results not only in comic mayhem but in death, transformation and a moving look at the surprising rewards of being losers in a winning-crazed culture. A runaway hit at the Sundance Film Festival, where it played to standing ovations, the film strikes a nerve with everyone who's ever been awestruck by how their muddled families seem to make it after all.
No one among the Hoovers quite has it together, but it's not for lack of trying. Father Richard (Greg Kinnear), a hopelessly optimistic motivational speaker, is desperately attempting to sell his 9-step program for success -- without much success. Meanwhile, the Hoovers' "pro-honesty" mother Sheryl (Toni Collette) is constantly harried by her family's eccentric secrets, especially those of her brother (Steve Carell), a suicidal Proust scholar fresh out of the hospital after being jilted by his gay lover. Then there are the younger Hoovers with their unlikely dreams - the four-eyed, slightly plump, seven year-old would-be beauty queen Olive (Abigail Breslin) and Dwayne (Paul Dano), an anger-fueled, Nietzsche-reading teen who has taken a staunch vow of silence until he gets into the Air Force Academy. Topping off the family is the grandfather (Alan Arkin), a foul-mouthed pleasure-seeker recently kicked out of his retirement home for snorting heroin.
They might not be the picture of perfect mental health, but when a fluke gets Olive invited to compete in the fiercely competitive "Little Miss Sunshine" competition in California, the whole Hoover family rallies behind her. They pile into their rusted-out VW bus and head West on a three-day tragicomic journey filled with madcap surprises and leading up to Olive's big debut - which will change the entire misfit family in ways they could never imagine.
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE features the directorial debut of renowned music video directors (and husband-and-wife team) Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who direct from a script by Michael Arndt. The film features the up-and-coming band DeVotchka.