Little Miss Sunshine
 | Directed by Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris Starring: Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, Abigail Breslin, Paul Dano 20th Century Fox, 2006, DVD Customer Rating: 529 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: 1382 in DVD
Actor: Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, Abigail Breslin, Paul Dano
Director: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
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: 101 minutes
Item Dimensions: 0.2 pounds
Package Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches, 0.15 pounds
- Pretty Funny!
- This movie was not quite what we expected and started out rather strangely, but was pretty funny and kind of cute. Was worth the money. Glad we bought it. Would do so again. … More reviews
- And I hate comedies
- I hate comedies and I don't like movies that are inappropriate. There was a lot of sexual humor in this one. I wouldn't recommend it for kids.
But all that is beside the point. This is the most hysterical movie I have ever seen in my entire life. I laughed so hard that I cried throughout almost the entire thing. And that's saying a lot… More reviews
- Zaney Movie, Unfortunate Ending
- I had no idea what to expect from "Little Miss Sunshine" but I knew that it was nominated for "Best Picture" so it must have had something going for it. I caught on quickly that this is not your ordinary movie and I soon realized that anything could happen. This is a story of a hopelessly dysfunctional family whose many seperate parts find a most unusal… More reviews
- Ode To Familial Dysfunction
- A question: What do you get when you mix a father who happens to be a self-help guru wannabe (Greg Kinnear); a foul-mouthed, lascivious (yet well meaning) grandfather (Alan Arkin); a sullen, rebellious teenager who refuses to speak (Paul Dano); a despondent, suicidal brother (Steve Carell); a cherubic, enthusiastic, young daughter (Abigail Breslin); and a frazzled mother trying to hold it all together (Toni… More reviews
- A feel good movie
- A great movie that starts off depressing and ends with a burst. A few F words, so it would be a problem to watch as a family with young children the same age as the girl in the movie who is made to cover her ears. … More reviews
