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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 1454
Released: December 19, 2006 |
| Our Price: $6.78 |
| Used Price: $1.48 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
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.
Description of Little Miss Sunshine:
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 |
Stills from Little Miss Sunshine Little Miss Sunshine Reviews:
Interesting 
2009-11-29 - I kind of came into this movie in the middle but all I can say from what I saw is when the little girl did her talent performance. Let's just say I cannot view Rick James' "Superfreak" the same again. For one thing, this family is dysfunctional from the word go. Big time back seat drivers, but in spite of their own quirks and such, they do rally behind the little girl so that she could enter The Little Miss Sunshine contest and enter it she does. I am a bit surprised how they came cross country in such a broke down vehicle, but then again, I seen worse, and if your determination is more than the circumstances, that wins through. But when that little girl did her song, I fell out. First of all, you got all these prim, grown looking little girls up there looking Jon Benet Ramsey clones doing cutesy stuff; but you got this little girl dancing to "Superfreak" albeit not appropriate for a little girl, not for a beauty show of Jon Benet clones, and when the folks went off, I could see the mother's concern for her child shine through for a bit, but when they joined her, I saw a family who showed love and concern for the smallest of their family. So to me, they can't be that dysfunctional.Quirky, not your average, everyday family, but family nonetheless.
WAY WAY OVER RATED!!!!! 
2009-11-28 - I always keep my reviews short, I hate to bore people as much as the movie.
I guess because of the cast the movie was pumped up so much.
I wouldn't buy this movie but rent it first then you can decide.
What's to Like? 
2009-10-19 - I guess I just don't understand why people seem to so enjoy portrayals of hideous dysfunction in families. I found this movie to be so awful that I couldn't even make it through the dinner scene to finish the rest of what I think was probably more of the same: scenes of a family that is ridiculously screwed up. Why do people like this kind of cr*p? Isn't there enough garbage to see out there in our day-to-day world? So sue me, I didn't watch the whole thing, but I couldn't stomach anymore of the nastiness.
A feel good movie 
2009-10-06 - You will experience almost every emotion with this movie. It is such a great, great story. I highly recommend it to almost everyone. It leaves you laughing and feeling good!
This generation's National Lampoon's Vacation
2009-09-23 - Dysfunctional family + road trip = Hollywood gold
In all seriousness, this independent film surprised many. It's offbeat, and boasts excellent performances by the entire cast.
