Little Miss Sunshine

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Film Description

A sharp and funny film that gained great reviews from just about everyone, Little Miss Sunshine follows an unconventional family as they trek across America to attend the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, in which the young daughter is an entrant. The dialogue is very funny, and the pageant sequence at the end, in which the daughter performs her act, is jaw-droppingly unforgettable. A real crowd-pleaser.

Film Information

DVD Extras

Feature commentary; Making of; Alternative ending.

Technical Details

Film Media

6 Stills

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1 Trailer

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Reviews & Articles

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Review by Demetrios Matheou on 18th December 2006

There aren't too many sunny dispositions in Little Miss Sunshine, for its protagonists, the Hoover family, are a gloriously ill-at-ease and mismatched bunch. That said, this hugely enjoyable film is one of those character-based, beautifully written and acted American independents where the more dysfunction and gloom on display, the more we laugh. The Hoovers really do give the Addams Family a run for their money. First there's dad Richard (Greg Kinnear), a struggling motivational speaker, whose forced optimism grates with his clan, and is in stark contrast to the ‘pro-honesty’ stance of his wife Sheryl (Toni Collette), a woman who thinks nothing of discussing suicide at the dinner table with her 7 year-old daughter. Then there's teenager Dwayne, a Nietzsche-reading misanthrope a year into a self-imposed vow of silence; Sheryl's brother Frank (Steve Carrell), recently dislodged as ‘the premier Proust scholar in the US’, whose slit wrists are debated over the fried chicken supper, and Richard's father (Arkin), a scabrous septuagenarian addicted to porn and heroin.
‘Grandpa’ has been helping the family's youngest, Olive, prepare her choreography for the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. But who is to take her to California, when so many adults are too feeble to be left behind? The Hoovers agree, begrudgingly, that they should all pile into the decrepit VW camper van for the trip west.
The best road movies combine incident with involving characters, whose self-knowledge develops en route. This doesn't disappoint in either regard. The Hoovers' journey is bookended by an unexpected death (its consequences both poignant and slapstick) and the climactic pageant, a hilarious event during which grandpa's demented inspiration and refreshing disregard for convention are revealed.
Of a terrific cast, Carell and Arkin shade the honours, the one beautifully eking out the detail of an introverted man painfully returning to life, the other larger than life. Paradoxically, Grandpa's rebellious ways reflect a man profoundly at ease with himself (he's only shooting up because he figures he might as well go out on a high) and whose unconventional wiles will have a profound effect on his family's collective psyche.

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Article - "Funny Ha Ha: A Brief History of the New American Comedy" by Mike McCahill
Friday 7th December 2007

The film journal Sight & Sound claimed recently that the American cinema is going through a period comparable to the golden age of the early 1970s. It’s a bold statement, though one chiefly premised on the present wave of dramas concerned with the fallout from an unp...  View article in full

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Collections & Lists

This film is part of the following Customer Film Lists

MovieMail Customer's Favourite Films of 2007 by MovieMail

A big thank you to all that took the time to vote this year, we had a fantastic response with over 1700 votes cast. The results are certainly interesting, with a good crossover with our own Films of the Year, but plenty of new blood too! The lucky winner, who receives all 12 of our favourites, was Jenny Copland from Tayport.

Make sure you also check out MovieMail's Films of the Year and our contributor's favourites - David Parkinson, Julian Upton, Michael Brooke, Graeme Hobbs, Mike McCahill, Pasquale Iannone, Pasquale Iannone and Alex Davidson.

MovieMail's Films Of The Year 2007 by MovieMail

As well as our own favourite films of the year, we also compiled MovieMail Customer's Favourite Films of 2007 and present our contributor's favourites - David Parkinson, Julian Upton, Michael Brooke, Graeme Hobbs, Mike McCahill, Pasquale Iannone, Pasquale Iannone and Alex Davidson.

As ever it has been tough. Strong contenders demoted at the last minute, personal favourites discarded, some coarse language exchanged, but here we are - twelve sterling examples of filmmaking that, as a whole, represent our, and hopefully your, taste in cinema.

Needless to say, they are all highly recommended - if there are any in the list that you don't own, don't hesitate to get them. Once you've finished with the final twelve, have a look at the nine Runners Up that we couldn't bear not to mention...

Top 25 DVD Film Releases of 2006 by Stephen

It seems to have be a bumper year this year for the release of films on DVD's - even though the range of films distributed in the cinema seems to be in one of its contracting periods. I have a small website (www.alt-flix.co.uk)in celebration of non-mainstream Films and have put together a list of 2006 Top DVD Film relases for that. The list here includes a real mixture of mainstream and more left field films but they all have have two things in common - firstly they received a DVD release during 2006 either in the USA or the UK, and secondly, each and every one of them are great movies.

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