LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

3 Stars – Thought Provoking

The caricatured dysfunction of the Hoover family gives “Little Miss Sunshine” a comical appearance.  But when we stop laughing and consider the people, we are confronted with painful personal and spiritual emptiness.  Living in a darkness that is cavernous and overwhelming them, their only ray of sunlight is the hope their youngest member has of being crowned “Little Miss Sunshine.”

Directed by the music video husband-and-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the film demonstrates their ability to create a moving experience, though it has crude language.  With just the right amount of slapstick and drama, music and dialogue, shock and innocence, life and death, they take us on an emotional journey in which love of family becomes the value and life is the process by which it is uncovered.  But this is a love that has no transcendent source or purpose and its anemic form within this family reveals a spiritual void.

This is seen in the emptiness of the “nine-steps” that Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear) has developed.  Trying to rise from his financially bankrupt life, Richard has created nine steps to becoming a winner.  It is his goal to put this scheme into a book and finally achieve success himself.  But it is clear that his philosophy of winning is all a shallow sham.

Created for purposes far more important than winning, such self-concerned motivational plans leave us shallow and self-absorbed making it hard to live with us.  This is easily observed in the film as Richard’s wife Sheryl (Tony Collette), her teenage son Dwayne (Paul Dano), and Richard’s father (Alan Arkin) are visibly tired of his platitudes.  The result is even more extreme when Dwayne chooses to isolate into contemptuous silence as he patterns his life on the teachings of Nietzsche’s nihilism.

Into this family scenario comes a sixth person, Sheryl’s professorial gay brother Frank (Steve Carell).  Having been thwarted in both love and his career, Frank is released into his sister’s care after having tried to commit suicide.  Frank’s depression with Dwayne’s hatred of his life is a stark contrast to Richard’s Pollyanna clichés.

The only person in the family whose innocence seems to remain intact is Olive (Abigail Breslin).  Olive had entered a small beauty contest at the invitation of Sheryl’s sister and come in second place.  When the first place winner is disqualified, Olive is invited to go to California and compete in the “Little Miss Sunshine” pageant.  It is the journey to the pageant that symbolizes the journey of this family through life.  The broken-down van which carries this broken family becomes the vehicle to pull them together to push themselves on down the road.  But it isn’t California or the pretentious beauty pageant that is their true destination.  It is finding some dignity in their humanity and love in their family. 

 

Discussion:                                   

1.       When Olive asks Frank if he believes in heaven, he cannot answer her.  When Olive asserts that she does, he asks: “Do you think I will get in?”  - to which Olive affirms that he will.  Where do you think Olive got her idea or belief about heaven?

 

2.       The profanity and promiscuity of the Grandfather and his inappropriate training of Olive are used as humor in the film.  Did you find this humorous?  What do you believe is the impact of such a patriarch on a family?

 

3.       What do you think of motivational speakers?  Do they have a true “solution” to the meaning of life?  What do you think happened when this family returned back to their home?

 

4.       Where do you think the pain in Frank’s life comes from?  Dwayne’s?  Richard’s?  Sheryl’s?  What strength emerges in them – and what is the source of that strength?

 

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Cinema In Focus is a social and spiritual movie commentary.  Hal Conklin is former mayor of Santa Barbara and Denny Wayman is pastor of the Free Methodist Church. For more reviews: http://www.cinemainfocus.com.