'''''Little Miss Sunshine''''' is a film directed by the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. The film has had high praise and acclaim, including winning the Best Feature - World Cinema Audience Award at the 2006 Sydney Film Festival, and even a standing ovation at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Distribution rights for the film were bought by Fox Searchlight for $10 million http://uk.news.yahoo.com/27012006/325/cold-hard-facts-sundance.html, which is reported to have been one of the biggest deals ever made in the festival's history http://www.rottentomatoes.com/news/comments/?entryid=284211. The film was released in the United States on July 26, 2006 and is scheduled to be released in the UK on September 8, 2006. This movie will have its European premiere at the 2006 Locarno International Film Festival.

Plot Synopsis

The Hoovers, a remarkably dysfunctional family of six, pack into a Volkswagen mini-bus together on a road trip west from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Their destination is Redondo Beach, California, where the Little Miss Sunshine pageant is being held — a competition in which seven-year-old Olive hopes to win the title. A simple car trip in a yellow Volkswagen Bus quickly becomes a test of the patience (and sanity) of its passengers who must somehow learn to tolerate and support one another.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for this film contains songs by Sufjan Stevens, Rick James, Tony Tisdale, and DeVotchKa. The score is composed by Mychael Danna and DeVotchKa.

Reaction

Michael Medved gave ''Little Miss Sunshine'' four stars (out of four) saying that "..this startling and irresistible dark comedy counts as one of the very best films of the year.." and that directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris and actors Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin and Steve Carell deserve Oscar nominations for this film.http://www.michaelmedved.com/pg/jsp/eot/home.jsp

Box Office

''Little Miss Sunshine'', every day for the first 15 days of its release, has had the highest per theater average of any movie in the United States.http://www.boxofficemojo.com

On July 29, 2006, ''Little Miss Sunshine'' made a phenomenal average of $20,335 per theater.http://www.boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/?sortdate=2006-07-29&p=.htm

Trivia

* The film took five years to make.
* Originally written as an eastcoast roadtrip movie from Maryland to Florida, it was shifted to a journey from New Mexico to California due to shooting issues.
* The role of the suicidal uncle was originally written for Bill Murray, but eventually went to Steve Carell.
* 5 identical Volkswagen Type 2s were used during filming.
* The movie was shot in sequence.
* Script was purchased from first time screenwriter, Michael Arndt, for $250,000.
* At dinner, the family eats chicken in a bucket from Dinah's Family Restaurant. Dinah's is in Los Angeles, California.
* In another dining scene, the family looks at menus from Pann's, a well-known family restaurant not far from Los Angeles International Airport. However, the scene actually was shot in another restaurant, not the real Pann's.
* Although known to ''Daily Show'' viewers for many years, Steve Carell, at the time he was cast for ''Little Miss Sunshine'', was a relative unknown in Hollywood. According to an article in ''Entertainment Weekly'', the producers of the film worried that he wasn't a big enough star and didn't have much acting experience. However, between the time the film was shot in the summer of 2005 and its release in the summer of 2006, Carell became a huge success as the star of the high-grossing film ''The 40-Year-Old Virgin'' and the leading character of the Golden Globe-winning telvision series ''The Office''. In the span of just one year, Carell had become such a star that the producers had gone from protesting his casting to tapping him to do most of the film's prominent marketing.

External links

*Official site
*FOX SEARCHLIGHT press release
*Soundtrack's Myspace Page