Little Miss Sunshine
 | Directed by Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton Starring: Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin, Toni Collette 20th Century Fox, 2006, DVD Customer Rating: 513 reviews Recommend |
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Take a hilarious ride with the Hoovers, one of the most endearingly fractured families in comedy history.
Father Richard (Greg Kinnear) is desperately trying to sell his motivational success program...with no success. Meanwhile, "pro-honesty" mom Sheryl (Toni Collette) lends support to her eccentric family, including her depressed brother (Steve Carell), fresh out of the hospital after being jilted by his lover. Then there are the younger Hoovers?the seven-year-old, would-be beauty queen Olive (Abigail Breslin) and Dwayne (Paul Dano), a Nietzsche-reading teen who has taken a vow of silence. Topping off the family is the foul-mouthed grandfather (Alan Arkin), whose outrageous behavior recently got him evicted from his retirement home. When Olive is invited to compete in the "Little Miss Sunshine" pageant in far-off California, the family piles into their rusted-out VW bus to rally behind her?with riotously funny results.
Pile together a blue-ribbon cast, a screenplay high in quirkiness, and the Sundance stamp of approval, and you've got yourself a crossover indie hit. That formula worked for Little Miss Sunshine, a frequently hilarious study of family dysfunction. Meet the Hoovers, an Albuquerque clan riddled with depression, hostility, and the tattered remnants of the American Dream; despite their flakiness, they manage to pile into a VW van for a weekend trek to L.A. in order to get moppet daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) into the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Much of the pleasure of this journey comes from watching some skillful comic actors doing their thing: Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette as the parents (he's hoping to become a self-help authority), Alan Arkin as a grandfather all too willing to give uproariously inappropriate advice to a sullen teenage grandson (Paul Dano), and a subdued Steve Carell as a jilted gay professor on the verge of suicide. The film is a crowd-pleaser, and if anything is a little too eager to bend itself in the direction of quirk-loving Sundance audiences; it can feel forced. But the breezy momentum and the ingenious actors help push the material over any bumps in the road. — Robert Horton
Beyond Little Miss Sunshine
 More Dysfunctional Family Comedies |  More films from the stars of Little Miss Sunshine |  More Independent Films Turned Sleeper Hits |
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Title: Little Miss Sunshine
Sales Rank: 851 in DVD
Actor: Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin, Toni Collette
Director: Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton
Studio: 20th Century Fox, 2006-12-19, Theatrical Release: 2006-08-18
Format: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC, Acpect Ratio 2.35:1
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), English (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed), English (Published)
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Region Code: 1
Running Time: 103 minutes
Item Dimensions: 0.2 pounds
Package Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches, 0.2 pounds
- fun
- Now this film is a bit on the odd ball side, it is funny, and I like it, I don't think it was Oscar worthy, but then I didn't think the Movie "Babe" ( the pig one ) was best Movie and it won, "Apollo 13" was much better for that yrs Oscar, but Hollywod didn't want Tom Hanks to have 3 in a row..politics...lol Anyway… More reviews
- Little Miss Sunshine
- This movie turned out to be a sleeper! It started out slow and I wandered if I hadn't made a mistake. As the movie continued I started laughing and didn't stop till the end. The ending also touched my heart for the underdogs of this world. You didn't know whether to cry or laugh. This is why I purchased this movie. I own very few dvd's. Another… More reviews
- Little Miss Sunshine
- Most families will enjoy this because most families aren't mental about making their young daughters look like street women for a beauty contest. I found this movie refreshing and I loved the family. Each member was developed exceptionally well. We see the typical family with it's highs and lows. The underbelly if you will of a realistic… More reviews
- Disfunction at its most mediocre
- Wow, was this ever a lame movie! It's unbelievable to me that so many people liked it! How is it possible that so many people had a VW bus AND are willing to love a movie on the basis of the vehicle alone? In all honesty, the funniest part of the movie was when they got to CA and the door fell off of the van (and that… More reviews
- Hilarious and heart-broken at the same time. Abigail Breslin's so cute, lovely, and innocently funny. It got 2 Oscars in 2007.
- It contains good dark humour. It won't appeal to many people. Many scenes made me laugh and broke my heart at the same time. It's not suitable for children because of foul language, dirty jokes, and drug scenes.
**** SPOILER. DO NOT READ THIS if you HAVE NOT WATCHED the MOVIE.
For example, in the scene where the… More reviews
