Despite the other girls being over-sexualized, Olive's burlesque performance scandalizes and horrifies most of the audience and the organizers, who demand Olive be removed from the stage. Olive's hitherto-unseen dance routine that Edwin had taught her is revealed to be a striptease performed to a Rocasound revamp of Rick James' " Super Freak". Sheryl, however, insists that they "let Olive be Olive", and Olive goes on stage. As Olive's turn to perform draws near, Richard and Dwayne realize that the amateur Olive is certain to be humiliated and, wanting to spare her feelings, run to the dressing room to talk her out of performing. As Olive prepares for the pageant, the family sees that the other contestants are slim, sexualized pre-teen girls with teased hair and capped teeth, performing highly elaborate dance numbers with great panache. A sympathetic hired hand named Kirby instead offers to register Olive on his own time. This prompts him to finally break his silence and shout his anger and disdain for his family, though apologizing after Olive calms him with a hug.Īfter a frantic race against the clock, the family arrives at the pageant hotel, and are curtly told by a pageant organizer that they are a few minutes past the deadline. During the final leg of the trip, Dwayne discovers that he is color blind, meaning he cannot become a pilot. Edwin dies from a heroin overdose, and the family has to smuggle his body out of the hospital. Frank encounters the ex-boyfriend who, in leaving him for an academic rival, had prompted his suicide attempt. Richard loses an important contract that would have jump-started his motivational business. Throughout the road trip, the family suffers numerous personal setbacks and discover their need for each other's support. Later on, the van's horn starts honking unceasingly by itself, which leads to the family being pulled over by a state trooper. When the van breaks down early on, the family learns that they must push the van until it is moving at about 20 mph before it is put into gear, at which point they have to run up to the side door and jump in. Because they have little money, they go on an 800-mile road trip in their yellow Volkswagen van.Ī Volkswagen T2 Microbus, similar to the one in the filmįamily tensions play out along the way, amidst the aging van's mechanical problems. Richard, Sheryl, and Edwin want to support her, and Frank and Dwayne cannot be left alone, so the whole family goes. Olive learns she has qualified for the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant, being held in Redondo Beach, California in two days. Olive, the daughter of Richard and Sheryl and the youngest of the Hoover family, is an aspiring beauty queen who is coached by Edwin. Richard's foul-mouthed father, Edwin, recently evicted from a retirement home for snorting heroin, lives with the family. Dwayne, Sheryl's son from a previous marriage, is a Nietzsche-reading teenager who has taken a vow of silence until he can accomplish his dream of becoming a fighter pilot. Sheryl's husband Richard is a Type A personality striving to build a career as a motivational speaker and life coach. Her gay brother, Frank, an unemployed scholar of Proust, is temporarily living with the family after having attempted suicide. Sheryl Hoover is an overworked mother of two living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 5.2.1 Academy Awards producers controversy.The film also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
It also won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature and received numerous other accolades. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won two: Best Original Screenplay for Michael Arndt and Best Supporting Actor for Alan Arkin.
Little Miss Sunshine was a box office success, earning $101 million, and was praised mainly for the performances, direction, screenplay and humor. The film had a limited release in the United States on July 26, 2006, and later expanded to a wider release starting on August 18.
The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2006, and its distribution rights were bought by Fox Searchlight Pictures for one of the biggest deals made in the history of the festival. Filming began on June 6, 2005, and took place over 30 days in Arizona and Southern California. It was produced by Big Beach Films on a budget of US$8 million. The film stars Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, and Alan Arkin, as members of a family taking the youngest to compete in a child beauty pageant. The screenplay was written by first-time writer Michael Arndt. Little Miss Sunshine is a 2006 American tragicomedy road film and the feature film directorial debut of the husband–wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.