- Description
Little Miss Sunshine is an unconventional American family comedy about one of the most endearingly dysfunctional families to hit the screen in recent memory. None of the hilarious Hoover family are doing too well - but it's certainly not because they're not trying hard enough. Father Richard (Greg Kinnear), a relentlessly optimistic motivational speaker, tries desperately to sell his nine-step program for becoming successful, more or less without success. The family's mother and "guardian of honor" Sheryl (Toni Collette) is constantly terrified by the eccentric secrets surrounding her loved ones - especially her brother (Steve Carell), a suicidal Proust scholar just back from the hospital.
Then there are the younger Hoovers and their not-so-realistic dreams - the shaven-headed and slightly rounded seven-year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin), who can already see herself wearing a child beauty queen crown, and the angry teenager Dwayne (Paul Dano), who is a sworn admirer of Nietzsche and is determined not to say a word until he's accepted to the Air Force Academy. The icing on the cake is the vulgar and self-indulgent grandfather (Alan Arkin), fresh out of a nursing home for snorting heroin. They may not be paragons of perfect mental health, but when Olive, through a stroke of luck, gets the opportunity to participate as a contestant in the prestigious Little Miss Sunshine pageant, the entire Hoover family proves to be a great support system for her. They all pile into a rusting van and embark on a three-day tragicomic journey full of surprises. At the end, Olivia's big premiere awaits them, changing the whole family in unexpected ways...