Little Miss Sunshine

First of all, I would like to say that “Little Miss Sunshine” was the funniest and most weird movie that I have ever seen. It was crazy and the whole family was dysfunctional. The mother had an addiction of “chain” smoking and the grandfather was addicted to snorting coke. The son (Duane) was strange, and did not speak because he took a vow of silence until he met his goal of becoming a pilot. The uncle, Frank, was a homosexual male who tried to kill himself because his student crush decided to be with a colleague of his and then he was fired from a job. Olive, the child was a chubby seven year old who adored her family and yearned to become Little Miss Sunshine. I think she was cute but compared to some of the other girls she was running up against, she lacked all the skills to become a beauty queen.
One part of the movie almost broke my heart when Olive asked her grandpa if she was pretty. Olive was so worried about losing because her father hated losers and she did not want to be one and was thinking about giving up. Her grandfather told her that “a real loser is someone who doesn’t even try”. In some odd way even though the grandfather was a drug addict he seemed to be an inspiration for the family and a role model for Olive. That was strange!
The entire movie centered on the trip to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant from Albuquerque to California. The family traveled in a dysfunctional yellow bus (go figure) and throughout the movie yellow was used many times. I think that yellow signified unresolved problems. The bus carried the family across state borders and broke down several times. Every time that the family wanted to use the bus they had to work together to push start the bus. When the father tried to use the bus by himself he was unable to push start it and took a moped to Scottsdale trying to get his plan sold. Olive was wearing yellow during the beginning of the movie until she found out that she was a contestant for the Little Miss Sunshine contest and then she wore other bright colors. Duane was often found wearing a yellow shirt until the last few scenes when he started to appear happier (at least until he found out he was color blind and could not be a pilot). Duane finally spoke to his family (actually screamed) and his problem was resolved and he wore white for the rest of the movie. During the scene where the parents were fighting at the hotel, all of the walls were yellow and the furnishings. The use of yellow in this movie was strange for me because when I usually see yellow it is during happy scenes not problematic scenes.
In the end though I think that the yellow signified unity because things seemed brighter for the family and the bus door was fixed. I think that the main lesson I found in this movie was that…. the strength and love of a family can help the members of the family overcome every obstacle that they will face! I know that in my own life I have found that my family has helped me through everything from good times to bad times. I really liked the message of this movie.
Another message I found was in the last few scenes when the family danced together at the pageant to help make Olives experience more rewarding. The family danced and laughed and didn’t care what other people thought of them at the time. I think the message that was portrayed here was that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To other people at the pageant Olive wasn’t so pretty but to her family she was a beauty queen.
Oh, one more thing, did anyone else think that grandpas death was way out there. The grandfather dies probably from a drug overdose and then the family steals his body and takes him with to California. That’s sick! I understand that they wanted Olives dream to come true but sometimes things need to be postponed. (Although, if they would have stayed with grandpa then the movie would have sucked!)
The music in the movie was excellent! I loved the fact that Olive danced to the song “Super Freak”, the music choices truly made the show funny! And I was impressed because again I was not annoyed with the pitch of the music and admit to listening to many of the songs that played within the movie.
It was interesting to read the article about the actual yellow buses used in the movie. I cannot believe that they had to use five different identical buses. The Volkswagen bus was definitely and important character in the movie. Its comical that all buses had to be on set because they kept breaking down, I’m sure the mechanic loved working on this set.
Until I read the second article I did not realize that it was Arndts first movie. When I read about how movies generally do not talk about money, I realized the significance. It is true normally in movies everyone is rich or else money is not talked about. This movie was made on a low budget and was about a family that was near bankruptcy. (I think that is probably why it is so great, it’s about real life problems.)
This was a great movie and I’m sure that I will watch it again.