Little Miss Sunshine (2006) on Netflix
Seven-year-old Olive Hoover qualifies for the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in Redondo Beach, California. Money is tight, so the whole family drives her there in a yellow Volkswagen van.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.8/10566,184 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes91%
Trailer
Plot summary
Sheryl Hoover lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband Richard, an aspiring motivational speaker; her teenage son Dwayne, who has sworn not to speak until he becomes a fighter pilot; Richard's father Edwin, sent away from his retirement home after snorting heroin; and her brother Frank, a scholar of Proust who has come to stay after attempting suicide. Olive, Sheryl's seven-year-old daughter, is coached in pageantry by Edwin. Word comes that Olive has qualified for a pageant in Redondo Beach, California, two days away. Rather than leave Frank and Dwayne behind, the family sets off together in a yellow Volkswagen van for the 800-mile drive, and the clutch fails soon after they start.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The role of Frank, the suicidal Proust scholar, was originally written for Bill Murray, and there was also studio pressure for Robin Williams, but the directing duo chose Steve Carell for the role a few months before filming began.
- When the studio tried to center the film on Richard Hoover and writer Michael Arndt disagreed, he was fired and replaced; a corporate change brought in a new studio head, and Arndt was rehired when the new writer left after four weeks of rewriting the script.
- Less than a day after the premiere, and after hours of intense bargaining overnight, Fox Searchlight acquired worldwide rights to the film by sunrise on January 21, offering $10.5 million plus 10% of all the gross revenues, one of the biggest deals made in the history of the festival.
- The broken clutch, stuck horn and detached door that plague the van in the plot were all based on similar problems writer Michael Arndt experienced during a childhood trip that involved the same type of vehicle.
- To make Breslin's character the "plump" figure shown in the film, she had to wear a padded suit during filming, and for Olive's final scene involving her dancing routine Breslin spent two weeks preparing with a choreographer.
- Little Miss Sunshine had five producers, Marc Turtletaub, Peter Saraf, Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa and David Friendly, but the academy did not want to include Berger and Yerxa, even though the Producers Guild of America sets no limit on how many producers can be honored for a film.
- The film was dedicated to a producer's niece, an extra in scenes set in the diner and the convenience store, who was killed in a car accident on September 14, 2005.
