Little Miss Sunshine

views updated

Little Miss Sunshine ★★★ 2006 (R)

A quirky, dysfunctional family piles into their VW bus and road trips to California so little sis, Olive (Breslin), can compete (as an alternate from the Albuquerque region) in the titular preteen pag eant, her young life's ambition. Along for the ride are her hugely unsuccessful moti vational speaker dad (Kinnear), ready-to-snap mom (Collette), crass drugsnorting grandpa (Arkin), mute-by-choice Nietzschean brother (Dano), and suicidal despondent uncle (Carrell). Smart script in the hands of topnotch cast results in memorable, offbeat characters and an original, enjoyable movie. 101m/C DVD . US Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Abigail Breslin, Steven Carell, Alan Arkin, Paul Franklin Dano, Bryan Cranston, Wallace (Wally) Langham, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Beth Grant; D: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris; W: Michael Arndt; C: Tim Suhrstedt; M: Mychael Danna. Oscars ‘06: Orig. Screenplay, Support. Actor (Arkin); British Acad. ‘06: Orig. Screenplay, Support. Actor (Arkin); Ind. Spirit ‘07: Director (Dayton), Director (Faris), Film, Support. Actor (Arkin), First Screenplay; Screen Actors Guild ‘06: Cast; Writers Guild ‘06: Orig. Screenplay.

More From encyclopedia.com