Little Miss Sunshine

Despite only seeing 'Little Miss Sunshine' once it has become one of my favorite movies. It's not the coolest movie, or the most funny but it's certainly very heart warming.

'Little Miss Sunshine' is one of those movies that is bound to brighten your day. The movie follows the lives of the Hoover family, which consists of goal orientated father Richard, over worked mother Sheryl, a heroine addicted grandfather, suicidal uncle Frank, seven year old Olive and her teenage brother Dwayne (Paul Dano), who has taken a vow of silence. When Olive (Abigail Breslin) wins a place in the 'Little Miss Sunshine' beauty pageant the family must take a road trip to California in their yellow caravan.

The family then experiences car trouble, in the form of a broken horn and a broken brake. Richard is loosing an important business deal, which may lead the family to bankruptcy, Frank meets the ex boyfriend who triggered his suicide attempt (while buying porn for grandpa) and Dwayne discovers that his dreams of becoming a test pilot may never come true.

Despite all of this the family continue to support little Olive all the way through. The movie focuses on the family interactions and while there are characters that you love and characters that you hate, all of them shine through in the end.

The thing that's really great about this movie is that the characters are so real. Sheryl (Toni Collette) is not the typical, boring American mother that you get in almost every other movie. She looks like a stressed out, over worked mother. It's not an all-American happy family. It's a family on the 'verge of a breakdown' and their flaws just make them even more lovable.

A really great part in this movie is when Dwayne jumps out of the moving car in rage, runs into the open, dry desert and crouches down in pain. He cries and beats the ground. The family are all standing on the side of the road, with no idea what to do. Dwayne wants to be left there, but his mother pleads that he comes because the pageant starts soon. Dwayne still does nothing. Olive slowly makes her way down the slope to where her brother is and sits down beside him, awkwardly placing her head on his shoulder. After a few seconds Dwayne sighs, and gets up, holding his sister and gets back in the van.

The movie has a killer ending, and I would recommend it to anyone.