Little Miss Sunshine – Film Review

The Hoover family — a man (Greg Kinnear), his wife (Toni Collette), an uncle (Steve Carell), a brother (Paul Dano), and a grandfather (Alan Arkin) — puts the fun back in dysfunctional by piling into a VW bus and heading to California to support a daughter (Abigail Breslin) in her bid to win the Little Miss Sunshine Contest. The sanity of everyone involved is stretched to the limit as the group’s quirks cause epic problems as they travel along their interstate route.

There is something about road-trip-style movies that honestly never fail to put in a great mood, without fail. For example, one of my favorite films of all time is without a doubt John Hughes‘ classic 1983 comedy National Lampoon’s Vacation. It’s not only a gut-bustingly hilarious movie with an infinite amount of hilarious moments throughout, but it also has such a huge heart at its core.

There are too many great ones out there to be honest, and one of my favorites to this day is Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’ Little Miss Sunshine, which follows a family that embarks on a long road-trip to get their daughter to the Little Miss Sunshine Contest in California in the hopes of getting her to perform and win the show.

Of course, seeing as how this is a road-trip comedy, you can certainly expect your fair share of hilarious moments here, but one thing I absolutely adore about this film is how sincere it is about almost everything. All of the central characters in the Hoover family feel like they could actually exist. The first time I watched this movie as a little kid, I thought they legitimately did.

Young Olive has dreamed of becoming Little Miss Sunshine for as long as she can remember, and does everything in her power to achieve that goal. This can be a bit daunting for her parents, but they want to support her as much as they can, which is when they decide to go on the trip in the first place.

But the other family members aren’t too giddy about having to cram in a vehicle together for a very, very, long time with each other – namely Alan Arkin’s character Edwin and Paul Dano’s character Dwayne. Both of them dread going on the trip, but along the way, they slowly start to appreciate it, and I think one of the reasons why almost everybody loves Little Miss Sunshine is how down-to-earth it is.

I know it might be weird to describe a film as down-to-earth, but seriously, this movie is. Nothing about it is dishonest in any way, instead going for the most realistic approach in every scene and yet even still, the film finds ways to be amazingly funny. But it also never shies away from getting extremely emotional.

There’s a genuinely heartbreaking scene later on in the film where Dano’s character Dwayne has a realization regarding his dream job, leading to him having a complete breakdown. In my opinion, it’s one of the most brilliantly acted scenes in any comedy film I’ve ever watched. Little Miss Sunshine finds an excellent balance of humor and tragedy without it feeling jarring, either.

And I think the reason why this film is as wholesome and endearing as it is is because of the script from Michael Arndt that feels majorly relatable. Keep in mind, the Hoovers go through some pretty crazy things in this film (especially during the third act), and I’m sure that most of us haven’t endured some of the things they do in this film. However, it’s relatable because it shows an extremely grounded portrayal of a family going on a trip with some big mishaps along the way.

But these mishaps aren’t goofy or cartoonlike such as the ones seen in the aforementioned Vacation. They all feel like things that could legitimately happen to us, too. Little Miss Sunshine is seriously the gift that keeps on giving. I’ve seen the film probably about ten or more times now, and yet each time I watch it, I find another reason why I love it.