Little Miss Sunshine: The Hoover Family Take a Road Trip…. Where’s Olive?
A huge hit at Sundance, Little Miss Sunshine was picked up for a record $10.5m plus by Fox Searchlight. They were certain that this low budget tale might hit all the right notes with audiences who weren’t interested in Superman, Miami Vice or Poseidon, and were looking for something a little deeper than whizz bang special effects.
Little Miss Sunshine went on release around the country this week, and came in at #7 in the box office with a total take so far of just under $13m – exceptional for such a small movie – but the question remains: is it any good?
Little Miss Sunshine is the story of the Hoover family, and we meet mom Sheryl (Toni Collette) first as she collects her brother Frank (Steve Carrell) from the hospital following his unsuccessful suicide attempt. She takes the monosyllabic Frank home, where he meets as dysfunctional a family as you could come across – just what he needs to help him recover and not think any more suicidal thoughts.
Dad Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a motivational speaker and it’s all he can talk about, though he’s hardly a shining example of what he preaches. Then there’s their teenage son Dwayne (Paul Dano), who worships Nietzsche and hasn’t spoken for 9 months because they won’t let him join the air force; the crotchety, foul mouthed granddad (Alan Arkin), who doesn’t care what people think of him and is open about his heroin habit, and finally their adorable daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) a typical, slightly pudgy young kid with big glasses.
Over a dinner crackling with tension, Olive gets an answerphone message: due to “something about diet pills”, she has made it through to the Little Miss Sunshine finals in San Diego. Problem is that they’re two days away, and they can’t afford the plane fare. No problem though; they’ll all go in the VW bug. The scene is set for a rollicking road trip, and of course, things start to go wrong almost straight away.
No spoilers here, so I’m not going to tell you what happens. What I can say is that Little Miss Sunshine is one of the most enjoyable movies I have seen so far this year. It made me laugh and cry, and that’s an admirable achievement.
The performances here – Steve Carrell, cast against type as a depressive Proustian scholar that’s unlucky in love, and the always good Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear and Alan Arkin make the movie, although it’s also the truly excellent writing by Michael Arndt that elevates this above others that cost five or ten times as much to make, but have a hundred times less emotion. Not only that, but they manage to do all this without being over two hours long.
Moreover, it’s the compelling performance of newcomer Breslin, the emotional center of the movie, that always holds our attention: in her ordinariness she is special, and so much more that the painted girl/women she sees at the show (yes, they do make it to the contest in the end). Sure it gets a bit silly at times, but overall we’re with the Hoovers all the way, and they’re all such rounded – and flawed – characters that it makes for an enjoyable – and emotionally real – story.
It’s been a bad year for movies so far – make sure that you catch Little Miss Sunshine while you can.
