Little Miss Sunshine

Little Miss Sunshine is a 2006 American comedy-drama road film and the directorial debut of the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. The screenplay was written by first-time writer Michael Arndt. The film stars Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, and Alan Arkin.

Little Miss Sunshine had an international box office gross of $100.5 million. 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. It also won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature and received numerous other accolades.

Plot
The Hoover family - a man (Greg Kinnear), his wife (Toni Collette), an uncle (Steve Carell), a brother (Paul Dano) and a grandfather (Alan Arkin) - puts the "fun" back in "dysfunctional" by piling into a Volkswagen Type 2 Microbus and heading to Redondo Beach, California to support a daughter (Abigail Breslin) in her bid to win the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant. The sanity of everyone involved is stretched to the limit as the group's quirks cause epic problems as they travel along their interstate route.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The story is bold and bright.
 * 2) Plenty of funny scenes.
 * 3) Great acting, especially Abigail Breslin as Olive.
 * 4) * The family also has excellent chemistry. It's as if they could be a real family too.
 * 5) Plenty of emotional moments, such as the scene where Dwayne learns that he's colorblind, meaning that he can't join the Air Force.
 * 6) Well-handled messages, such as "Winners don't give up".
 * 7) * Also, it tells us that we don't need a beauty pageant contest to determine if we're a winner or not.
 * 8) Brilliant cast.
 * 9) There's also some good LGBT representation with Frank's character.
 * 10) Olive's dance at the Little Miss Sunshine beauty queen is hilarious as hell.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Richard is really unlikeable at the beginning with his whole ideology that they are winners and not losers to the point of mocking his brother-in-law Frank, though he gets better at the end.
 * 2) Many of the Little Miss Sunshine contestants wear revealing and skimpy outfits that can be seen really hypersexualized and innapropiate given their ages.

Reception
The film received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 91% positive aggregate rating, based on 214 reviews, with an average rating of 7.72/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Little Miss Sunshine succeeds thanks to a strong ensemble cast that includes Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, and Abigail Breslin, as well as a delightfully funny script". On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 80 out of 100, based on reviews from 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".