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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 271
Released: December 19, 2006 |
| Our Price: $6.92 |
| Used Price: $3.00 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Despite their individual problems and disappointments, the Hoovers decide to support young daughter Olive's dream of competing in a California beauty pageant.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 5-FEB-2007
Media Type: DVD
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:
Little Miss Overrated 
2008-07-02 - Having finally rented this DVD after all the praise and an Oscar, I was expected a good dose of hilarity. What I got was a dark rewrite of National Lampoon's Vacation brought up to these Napoleon Dynamite times. It's dark, cynical and relentlessly bleak, even if moments of really funny stuff bounce off the bleakness.
The actors are all well suited for their roles, with Abigail Breslen perfect as Olive and Alan Arkin getting the snarkiest lines as the heroin snorting granddad. Steve Carell proved he had dramatic chops here, even he is forced to play the gay cliché to the max, and Paul Dano gets a heck of a lot of mileage out of not speaking for most of the film.
However, the film never really nails its timing. Funny bits are spaced with long pits of dysfunction, forcing you to deal with the fact that these people are genuinely annoying. The finale is a hoot, but again, every person here loses their dream. The payoff a broad comedy aims at the arthouse crowd...or maybe fans of Carell. Put aside the hype, and you have a stunningly average bit of filmmaking.
Brilliant and just about flawless 
2008-07-01 - This movie is absolute perfection. There is nothing I don't like about it. I laughed, I cried. This is one of those movies that everyone needs to see. It is filled with characters that are brilliantly acted and quickly become people we know. It moves swiftly and powerfully from comedy to drama and back again.
If this film doesn't touch your heart, you need to check to be sure you're still breathing.
quirky
2008-06-29 - Little Miss Sunshine is about a family trying to get the youngest daughter across country to compete in the "Little Miss Sunshine" pageant. There's the dad (Greg Kinnear), who's a motivational speaker and author of a self-help book he's trying to sell; there's the gay uncle (Steve Carell), just out of the hospital after trying to kill himself; there's the teenage son (Paul Dano) who's taken a vow of silence; there's the grandfather (Alan Arkin) who's been kicked out of the retirement community; there's the daughter (Abigail Breslin) who's not quite like the other pageant contestants; and the mom (Toni Collette) who tries to hold them all together.
The trip tears them all apart and puts them back together, as a family.
If the characters were less quirky, the story would be too heartwarming for words, and would require a warning from dentists. But as it is, they're understandable and sympathetic in their quirkiness, and because they're exaggerated, it's easy to see parts of them in your own life, whether in yourself or those around you, making the movie very thought-provoking.
Little Miss Sunshine is described as a comedy, but I don't see that. There are funny parts, yes, but the story is too tragic to be a comedy, I think.
Sunny Olive.
2008-06-25 - Little Miss Sunshine starring Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette is the cutest and zaniest film of 2006. This film was nominated for best picture and Alan Arkin won best supporting actor, I was worried this film would be a disappointment but I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed this quirky flick from beginning to end. Abigail Breslin (also nominated) is ray of sunshine as a beauty pageant hopeful Olive Hoover, she is plain, chubby, and less than graceful but she has tremendous heart. Breslin's performance is pretty amazing for someone so young, and jeez she's been in like a thousand films after this one made her famous. Paul Dano and Steve Carell also star and probably have the best character layout in this film. I highly recommend this much-beloved gem! Enjoy!
Portrait of a quirky, loyal American family. 
2008-06-20 - Here they come now. One is wearing a 'Jesus was wrong' t-shirt while his eyes burn with hatred for everything around him, another is a suicidal scholar who is still getting over a failed relationship, and their leader: a self-help guru who just can't seem to help himself. These are some of the faces that make up the Hoover clan as they attempt to get their yellow van moving back down the highway by first pushing it. Their destination is the Little Miss Sunshine competition in Redondo Beach, California.
Olive, the young, slightly overweight daughter of the Hoovers who has earned a spot in the competition, is the principle character here. She seems to be the force that brings this eclectic family unit together, and it is through her that all the members of the Hoover family find commonality and loyalty toward once another.
Perhaps the wittiest film of 2006, Little Miss Sunshine is at times vulgar and will make you squirm a bit, but the subject matter is all about the fine trimmings of family and the message is clear during the last, nutty segments of the film, "Family is family, and you've only got one, so get over your differences and DANCE, baby!"
