Little Miss Sunshine

UK Release Date. 8 September 2006
Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 41 mins
Director. Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris.
Cast. Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Greg Kinnear.
Rating. 72%

Review.

Directed by husband and wife team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and written by first-time screenwriter, Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine follows a dysfunctional family from New Mexico on a farcical road trip to California, where seven-year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin) plans to enter the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant.

Little Miss Sunshine's infectious charm would not be possible without a stellar cast of talented actors - Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Steve Carell and Paul Dano. Finally, there’s Abigail Breslin, as young Olive whose obsession with beauty pageants leads the family to take the cross-country trip to let her compete in the eponymous Little Miss Sunshine pageant. The family's ageing and temperamental mustard yellow VW minivan that will only engage ignition from a rolling start is the sixth member of this motley crew.

The gentle and unobtrusive approach adopted by Dayton and Faris, succeeds in breathing life into this charming story by letting the actors completely own their characters. Indulge the elements of farce, including the extended sequences of physical comedy, for Little Miss Sunshine takes its characters very seriously indeed, and affords them a measure of dignity even at their most ridiculous. 

Little Miss Sunshine was a critically acclaimed multi-award winner, including two Academy Awards (for Michael Arndt’s screenplay and Alan Arkin’s supporting performance as Grandpa Edwin). The film delighted audiences and critics alike at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and spawned an entire subgenre of independent films that mixed eccentric characters and gallows humour to produce a relatable, but distinctly unique, balance of tone and sentiment. Films such as Me And Earl And The Dying Girl, Captain Fantastic and The Peanut Butter Falcon share a lineage with Little Miss Sunshine.

Little Miss Sunshine is a genial, enjoyable and heartwarming film, but one that somewhat disappoints because of the filmmakers' reluctance to condone junior beauty pageants. Little Miss Sunshine dips a trembling toe in the murky pool of implied paedophilia and, almost immediately, anxiously withdraws it - preferring instead to convict junior beauty pageants on the more lenient charge of being absurd, crass and grotesque.