Little Miss Sunshine is a road movie that follows the journey of a dysfunctional family on their 800 mile trip from Albuquerque, New Mexico to California. On the way many mishaps occur and this is what brings about the comedy in the film.

The film opens with a shot of olive watching and re watching the winning of the Miss America pageant, from this shot it is quite clear that she desperately wants to win this competition and this is her driving force within this film. We are slowly introduced to each character one by one bringing with it their motivational drive to the film. Richard, the father, is a failed motivational speaker which is irony in its self as he is always banging on about being a winner and how to become one. Dwayne is a 15 year old teenager who reads Nietzche works, he has taken a vow of silence until he can accomplish his dream of becoming a fighter pilot. Edwin, the grandfather, is introduced snorting heroin. You later find out that he was in fact kicked out of his retirement home for snorting it. Frank has just tried to commit suicide and has been dumped on the family as the only people that will take care of him. Sheryl, the mother, is the glue that is holding the family together. At the start of the film when introducing Frank to Dwayne she brushes of his vow of silence as “a little quiet”.

Olive is obviously not beauty pageant material and gets through the regional round on a technicality, after much arguing between the family it is decided that they will all go because no one can be left alone for various reasons and flying is not possible because of the families financial situation.

The Road Trip takes place in a Volkswagen T2 Microbus, which becomes a character in itself as the movie progresses. As the bus is old and has defiantly seen better days it doesn’t take well to being driven 800 miles in 2 days and starts to break. First to go is the clutch, this renders moving the clutch form 1-2 usless and the only way they can drive is by rolling down a hill and gaining 20mph or as Richard says “what if there’s no hill?” they have to push the bus and jump in one by one once it has gained enough speed. Next to go is the horn which breaks so that its stuck on going off every other second, this leads to a funny clip where they are stuck in traffic and the drivers around him think that he is honking at them.

The climax of the film takes place at the beauty pageant where they are 5 minutes late and almost aren’t allowed to sign up, until the friendly sound guy helps them out. At the beauty pageant we start to get an idea for how Olive isn’t meant be there and really sticks out like a sore thumb. But it isn’t until the girls talent performances until you start to feel how wrong these shows are, 7 year old girls dressing up in adult swimming costumes and tarting around on stage. This is cleverly portrayed during Olives, before now unseen, performance where she dances to “Super Freak” by “Rick James” where lyrics include “The girls a super freak” and “That girl is pretty kinky”. I think this is Grandpa’s way of mocking the whole situation, as he taught her the moves. The dance horrifies the audience and many begin to leave, whether it’s because of the dance or the song isn’t really shown, but the Miss California judge is really enjoying the performance which suggests that this would be alright if it was an adult performing it.

“Little Miss Sunshine” has been nominated and won many different awards, most of which revolving around “Best Picture”. Although the film has been marketed as a inherently funny film, I don’t think this is true. It’s more of a dramatic film with dark comedy spread throughout so If while watching the film you’re looking for laughs then you may just be disappointed. But if you’re going to see the film to enjoy yourself then you will find yourself laughing out loud many times during the film.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 20th, 2007 at 7:24 pm and is filed under Comedy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.