Directed by husband and wife team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, 'Little Miss Sunshine' was released in the USA in 2006, shortly followed by a release in most parts of the world. Produced by Fox Searchlight Pictures, with an estimated budget of $8,000,000 , this mainstream black comedy has reportedly won over 50 awards, including 2 Oscars.
With a cast of well know stars, including Greg Kinnear (You've got mail, Ghost town), Alan Arkin (Get Smart, Edward Scissorhands) and Steve Carell (40 year old virgin, Despicable Me), Abigail Breslin who plays their young daughter 'Olive' was a new face to the screen, having only previously starred on screen in small roles, most memorably as 'Sarah Davis' in the 2004 'Raising Helen'. Aged just 8 years old during her portrayal of the innocent girl 'Olive' experienced co-stars claimed in USA today that they "were astounded by her seriousness of purpose during shooting" and writer Claudia Puig announced she felt that had "Olive had been played by any other little girl, she would not have affected us as mightily as it did". I think that the casting of this film really affected the success of this film.
In the pre-production stages of this film, writer Michael Arndt came to producers from Big Beach productions with a screenplay, and they were "instantly disarmed by the offbeat but distinctly American family...that thrived in spite of themselves." The Big Beach producers teamed up straight away with Bona Fide Production, who also felt drawn in to the cutting raw humour of the screenplay, and started to help develop the characters into people that every member of the audience could relate to. This film was created with the intention of seeming as non stereotypical as possible whilst actually portraying the stereotypical American family, this is visible in the directors notes as they describe the characters "A motivational speaker who can seem to motivate anyone" "a divorcee who struggles to keep her second attempt at a family together" and "recently suicidal after a downward spiral". I think that, although very amplified and outrageous, these differences in character, outline the differences that every family in the world faces.During the film, all of the family members lives become more entwined as we get deeper into the story, however at the beginning we are introduced to the characters one by one. I really like the way that each character is built up individually first, and then we see them all as a family for the first time at the dinner table, and we watch as they have an awkward conversation that erupts into and argument about suicide and the appropriateness of the conversation. I think that this sets the basis for the film, and eases the audience into the darkly comic ideas of the writers. I think that directors Dayton and Faris chose to introduce the characters this way so that the audience could be shown how each character was individual in their own way, and how this ultimately results in an unstable family.
An old yellow VW van is the focal point of the family's travel and transport, and whilst adding the comical element of being broken, and the family having to run to catch up and get into it, I think that the van also has another meaning. According to a review by Vicky Luzon - "an old VW van typical of the 1960s and 1970s, a time when the Conservative idea of perfection had not yet taken hold" I think that this history combined with the family running for the van almost denotes the family running to find and catch up with perfection.
The directors have twisted the popular "perfect family" scenario of a mum, a dad, a daughter and a son, by adding a grandad and an uncle. I think that they have done this to portray a more realistic example of the 'American family' and therefore relate to a larger audience. I also think that this sense of an "un-perfect family" also adds to the awkwardness of the whole character dynamic.In contrast to that, as the movie progresses the family begin to seem more alike and then as 'Olive' performs her naive yet suggestive dance at the end of the pageant, we finally see the family come together as a whole and support her amidst all of the perfect "beauty pageant queens" because they see her as perfect for their family of "weirdos". This whole outcome is accompanied by a musically descriptive soundtrack, with the list of songs containing emotive music such as "No One Gets Left Behind" and "We're Gonna Make It" by Mychael Danna and DeVotchKa. I think that the producers chose to use this selection of music because it encourages and allows the audience find a connection with the family and therefore root for them to not only make it to the competition, but to make it as a family.
Summary The family is depicted:
- Through use of odd clothing/costumes , i.e Olive's basketball uniform.
- By using quick cuts between characters to denote awkwardness and sharpness
The family are over all depicted as a geeky and out of place American family. This is shown through the use of language and script, the way that the characters relationships are introduced and also the overall story and outcome.
Watching this film has been helpful towards the research for my project because it was an example of an un-perfect family who eventually accepted each other, it has also enforced my idea of the perfect family dynamic being a mum, dad, son and daughter, but have realised that this is infact not a realistic view of family, "Little Miss Sunshine" outlines the real idea of 'family'. I hope that I can research more into the public view of the perfect family, but this has been a really good start to finding out the movie industry's take on that idea, as futher research I am going to look into the cartoon/animation depiction of family.
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