Little Miss Sunshine

Disclaimer: This is a movie review and contains spoilers. Read forward on your own accord. I'm not a professional critic, these are just my thoughts.

Hola mis amores;

Welcome back to my blog! I hope you're having a good day or night. I watched a movie today.

Now people who know me personally are going to get shocked; as I rarely watch movies or any series for that matter. This movie has been on my list for a long time and today I finally watched it. I'm going to really break down the movie here.

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The main characters are Edwin Hoover (Grandfather), Richard Hoover(father), Sheryl Hoover (mother), Dwayne Hoover (brother), Frank Ginsberg (Uncle) and Olive Hoover (the protagonist at least for me). The casting for this film is absolutely splendid. Steve Carell as most of you might know him as Michael from 'The Office', plays the role of Frank Ginsberg.

Sheryl and Richard live in Albuquerque, New Mexico with their kids and Richard's father Edwin. After Frank's failed suicide attempt, he comes to live with his sister and her family. Richard is a life coach and has a overtly positive outlook on life. He is in the process of publishing his own book. Edwin, the grandfather was thrown out an old age home because he indulged in snorting heroin. Dwayne is Sheryl's son from a previous marriage and has taken a vow of silence until he achieves his dream of becoming a fighter pilot. Olive is an aspiring beauty pageant contestant, who is coached by Edwin.

The story gains momentum when they learn that Olive has qualified for the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in California. Since Frank and Dwayne cannot be left back alone, the whole family makes this trip in their Volkswagen bus.

The family faces many challenges during this trip and realize that if they stick together they will make it. During this trip, Richard's book deal falls apart. Their bus breaks down and they find that they'll need to replace the clutch. But since the clock is ticking, the family finds and alternative, which is, putting the gear at a one or two while the others push the bus.

When the family makes a transit stop at a gas station, where Richard finds out that his book is not going to make it, Frank meets his ex-boyfriend. His ex-boyfriend actually left him for another professor and this was the reason Frank has attempted suicide.

They soon stop at motel to get a night's sleep, where Edwin is found dead in the morning due to heroin overdose. A hilarious scene of the family fleeing from the hospital with Edwin's corpse is seen. They place the corpse in the trunk of the bus.

During the last leg of the trip, Dwayne finds out that he is colorblind, which leads him to breaking his vow of silence and triggers an outburst.

Racing against the ticking clock the family finally makes it to the pageant. To all of their extreme horror, they find that all the small and young girls are overtly sexualised. This makes Richard and Dwayne try and talk back Olive from performing, but her mother intervenes and leaves it up to Olive to decide. Olive performs a strip-tease choreographed by her grandfather, Edwin. Despite watching other overly sexualised girls, the audience is in dismay when they see Olive perform. The stage organisers try to get her off stage, unsuccessfully. Richard rushes to his daughter's side. he is ordered to get Olive off stage but instead joins her and dances along. Slowly, all the family members join this dance.

Later, the family is detained by the police and is let go on one condition: that they do not get Olive to another beauty pageant in California, ever.

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Let's get to some of my absolute favorite scenes:

1. When the family stops for breakfast in a diner, Richard tries to talk out Olive of eating ice-cream stating that if she really wanted to be a beauty queen she needs to be skinny. Sheryl tries to elbow Richard and even tells Olive that she can be whatever she wants, skinny or fat and they'd still be proud of her. Richard really got on my nerves at this point. When the waitress arrives with the ice-cream, disheartenedly Olive refuses to eat it. Edwin, Frank and Dwayne immediately start devouring it whilst teasing Olive about it. Olive soon gives in starts enjoying her ice-cream.

Olive later asks a beauty pageant winner if she eats ice-cream, and when she says yes, Olive gets really happy and a hug smile adorns her face.

2. The relationship between Dwayne and Frank. When Frank arrives, he is made to stay with Dwayne. Dwayne initially hesitant slowly warms up to Frank. He even writes, "Welcome to hell" on the first night. Throughout the movie, Dwayne trusts Frank a little bit more than any other member of his family.

3. The night when they're staying at the motel, Olive asks to be allowed to sleep with her grandpa. Edwin is not only her grandpa but also her mentor. Beyond this the relationship they share is simply magical.

Remembering her father's remark from the diner, Olive tells her grandpa that she is afraid to be a loser because her daddy hates them. Edwin while calming her down, tells her that real losers are those people who do not even try. He also tells her he loves her and is proud of her. This scene can move you to tears, as Olive a mere child is seen afraid of losing her father's love for her. I can only imagine how hard is death must've been on her.

4. When Richard loses his book deal he is seen distraught and disappointed. Edwin places a hand on his shoulder and tells him that he is proud of him despite him losing. Richard is moved to tears and it is seen how much those words mean to him. Upon Edwin's death, Richard though trying to stay strong somehow seems more human. However bad of a person he may be but at that point all I could think was that he lost his father.

5. At this point you have to know that Dwayne will be my favorite. The way his character develops from disdain to his family, to forgiveness and acceptance is phenomenal. The part where he realises that he is colorblind and will never be a fighter pilot he breaks down in the bus. He kicks and punches the walls and the pain he's going through is evident.

When the bus is pulled over, Dwayne rushes to a field and screams and curses. This is first time he has talked in nine years. He bursts into tears and shouts vengeful words at his family. He asks them to leave him alone and go ahead with the trip. Olive slowly makes her way to her brother and gives him a hug. This hug seems to work wonders and Dwayne composes himself and they leave together for the pageant. The pain that Dwayne feels when his dreams shatter is very well portrayed. It actually makes it's way through the screen.

Dwayne later talks it over with Frank and he tells Frank that no one can actually stop him from pursuing his dreams.

6. In the swimsuit contest, Olive is seen comparing herself to the others who have flattened stomachs and exaggerated makeups. She looks herself in the mirror and sucks in her stomach to see if she looks better.

This scene is heartbreaking as no young child deserves to feel bad about their body. In later stages of life, this could worsen and may even lead to developing an eating disorder.

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Overall this movie was an absolute delight to watch. The character developments of Richard is the most noticeable. The way he goes from ridiculing everything to supporting his daughter is simply beautiful. I'd definitely watch this movie again.

Until next time!

~moonrelation