Welcome back to the ILTBTA Movie Beauty Pageant! Thank you Dog Day Afternoon for your … spirited routine. Try not to slip on your own sweat on your way off the stage. Our next contestant is a real crowd-pleaser: Little Miss Sunshine. Watch as it weaves a tale of complex yet realistic characters in a pretty miserable family! Led by an ensemble cast of the most normal looking people in Hollywood, Little Miss Sunshine was already voted by our judges as “Most Likely To Have Actually Been Seen And Liked By Our Friends And Family.”
So please give a warm round of applause and welcome to the stage … Little Miss Sunshine!
Previews
What, if anything, did we know about this coming attraction before we watched it?
Ellen:
🎶 You know me (you know me)
In anticipation for precipitation stack chips for the rainy day
Jay, Rain Man is back
With Little Ms. Sunshine, Rihanna, where you at? 🎶
Tyler: Wow I had no idea those were the lyrics, so if nothing else I’ve learned something new. Back to the movie: finally one I know! Despite having never seen it, I’m generally familiar with the overall plot (dysfunctional family travels to a beauty pageant, hijinks ensue) and have heard nothing but good things from friends and family who have. Let’s pile into the VW bus and hit the road!
Plots & Feelings
This one’s pretty self-explanatory.
Short Version (courtesy of IMDb): A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus.
Long Version (modified from Wikipedia and formatted to fit your screen):
Seven-year-old Olive Hoover loves beauty pageants. It is a new love brought on by taking second place in a regional contest in Florida over spring break, and now Olive practices with her grandfather every night for New Mexico’s Little Miss Chili Pepper! Said grandfather takes a little time at night to snort white powder off a mirror (small wonder he was kicked out of his retirement community), so who knows what this routine will look like. Olive’s dad Richard is an aspiring motivational speaker who can’t quite get a crowd yet and doesn’t love having his own father in the house. Olive’s brother is 15-year-old Dwayne, who has taken a vow of silence until he achieves his goal of becoming a fighter pilot. Her mother Sheryl is busy at the hospital picking up her brother Frank, who just attempted suicide.
Ellen: Does every house in New Mexico actually look like the set of Breaking Bad or do they just reuse that one over and over?
Future Tyler: Given the fact that Bryan Cranston and Dean Norris both eventually show up in this movie, maybe they had some input!
Frank has to sleep in Dwayne’s room due to doctor’s orders that he not be left alone. He’s confused by his nephew’s whole deal, but at least someone is as unhappy as he is1. Sheryl begins the process of getting dinner (fried chicken and salad) ready, while Richard tries to get a hold of someone named Stan Grossman, who’s supposed to help kick his life-coaching into the next gear. Dwayne reads Nietzsche, and Frank examines the Mayor McCheese glass on the table, wondering how he got here. Well, he gets the chance to explain, because Olive asks him about the bandages on his wrists. Sheryl kind of shocks everyone by outright saying he tried to kill himself. Frank explains he fell in love with his grad student, who not only didn’t love him back but also started dating Larry Sugarman, so Frank lashed out and got fired and lost his apartment, and the cherry on top was that Larry got a MacArthur Genius Grant. So that was when. Oh also Richard is a complete jerk about it, trying to turn it into a lesson for Olive about being a loser.
Ellen: The script describes corralling everyone for dinner as a “chaotic ballet”, and what we see on screen nails it.
Tyler: That scene might as well have been out of a documentary. Also, Richard’s whole toxic “don’t be a loser, be a winner” schtick would be so much more insufferable had we not already known that he was overcompensating for failing to get his motivational speaking/book deal off the ground. It is still annoying though.
So, yeah, pageants! Olive learns she qualified for the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in Redondo Beach! She races around the house to get packed while her parents try to sort out logistics. All of their money (namely Sheryl’s) is tied up as seed money for Richard’s business, so flying is out. Grandpa is her coach, Richard is the only one who can drive stick on the VW van, Sheryl promised she’d go, and Frank and Dwayne can’t be left alone. On the promise of flight school, Dwayne agrees. Everybody’s going!
Tyler: I find it interesting that prior to leaving on the trip, Olive (a seven-year-old) shows us the most emotional range out of everyone in the family: she’s been determined working on her routine, curious asking about her uncle’s situation, sad learning about her uncle’s situation, and now downright giddy as she squealed around the house in excitement. I’m sure that will change as the movie goes on (hooray for complex characters!), but the relatively one-note nature of the adults (and Dwayne) again feels very realistic.
On the road, we learn Grandpa was kicked from his retirement community for snorting heroin2! He also advises Dwayne to have sex with as many women as possible in his life. Must be time for breakfast! Olive learns she can have her waffles “a la modey” and is very excited, until Richard turns it into a lecture about fattening foods. Shocking that he’s an even bigger buzzkill than Dwayne! Leaving the diner, the crew learns that the clutch on the van is broken, and they all have to push it up to 20 mph in order to get going again. Later while getting gas, Grandpa asks Frank to get him some porn. Frank has a fun time with that, but picking out straight porn is all fun and games until your ex-boyfriend walks in! Frank is mortified, but not as much as Richard is when he finally gets his call from Stan and… the result is not what he hoped for. His dad says he’s proud that Richard tried something3, but that doesn’t stop Richard and Sheryl from getting into a huge fight about money at the motel that night.
Ellen: And Dwayne lies on his bed in his “Jesus was Wrong” shirt, smirking at the fight because he’s so *~tWiStEd~* (guitar riff)
Tyler: He’s just mIsUnDeRsToOd, you wouldn’t get it!
Tyler: Anywho, I know it’s a movie, but what are the odds that Frank would run into an old grad student in a random gas station off I-10? Again, I understand it’s for plot purposes, but for an otherwise pretty realistic movie that took me out of it for a second.
Richard remembers that he. is. a. WINNER, so he absconds to Scottsdale on a motorized scooter to confront Stan in person, and he’s told in no uncertain terms that it ain’t happening. In the morning, Olive pounds on her parents’ door, because Grandpa isn’t moving! And oh my gosh, he actually dies at the hospital from a heroin overdose. The bureaucracy surrounding death is really inhibiting their ability to get to Redondo by three PM, so what else can they do: they steal the body!
Tyler: I kept waiting for the Grandpa to suddenly wake up or for it to be the wrong person under the sheet in the hospital room. I’m shocked he actually got killed off! Stealing the body from the hospital might be a bridge too far for me though. As is suggested by one of them, why not just have someone stay with him instead of playing this for obvious laughs?
The van throws another wrench in their plans by honking incessantly, and they’re pulled over. Thankfully, the trooper mistakes Richard’s nerves about him finding the body for bashfulness over the porn in the trunk and lets them go with a warning. Olive entertains herself by performing vision tests on Dwayne that she snagged from the waiting room, and we find out that he’s colorblind and thus cannot be a fighter pilot. Richard pulls over, and Dwayne runs out and breaks his vow of silence with an almighty “FUUUUUCK!” He screams at the family that he hates them all: divorce, bankruptcy, suicide, are they serious?? Olive, having not been mentioned, goes over to him and just rests her head on his shoulder. Dwayne relents and gets back in the van.
They frantically race to the pageant registration, only to be told by an overly-coiffed lady that registration ended 3 minutes ago. An employee does them a solid and puts Olive in the system, and she’s further delighted to meet Miss California and learn that even this beauty queen eats ice cream. Not able to take the insane Toddlers in Tiaras vibes, Frank and Dwayne head out to the ocean for an impromptu heart-to-heart. They don’t exactly say this, but neither of them is giving up. Back inside, Olive begins to realize that she’s #notlikeothergirls, and her confidence is shaken for the first time. Her family seems to agree, with everyone coming backstage to pull her out of there before the talent portion. But Olive wants to dedicate her routine to her Grandpa, and Sheryl says to “let Olive be Olive,” so she goes out.
Tyler: Greg Kinnear gives some top tier facial expressions during the beauty pageant as he realizes just what he’s gone on this wild journey for. They’re very Ben Wyatt-esque.
And hoo baby, she does a bonkers burlesque routine to “Super Freak”! It has more in common with The Full Monty than Miss Congeniality, and the reaction is, shall we say, mixed! Largely there’s a lot of horrified booing from hardcore pageant families for whom the irony of this overly sexual performance is lost. Olive’s family leaps on stage to support her, dancing wildly. The family is later released from hotel security on the condition that Olive never ever ever participates in a pageant in the state of California again. Seems pretty fair, so they pile back in the van and bash through the barrier of the hotel’s toll both on the road to Albuquerque.
Intermission
Even though ILTBTA is free, please indulge us further and enjoy this quick “advertisement.”
This installment of ILTBTA is brought to you by … Pann’s Diner!
Welcome diners, come on in to Pann’s, where most of the menu is under $4 and booths are big enough for the whole family. With food options ranging from garden salad to ice cream with waffles, Pann’s is sure to cater to any appetite on a budget. Allow our friendly staff and speedy service to relax your travel-weary bones. Conveniently located on I-10, the world’s most boring road, we’re here to make your meal special.
Mention ILTBTA on your next visit and receive Grandpa’s In Memoriam Special (with extra bacon) for half off!
Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat?
Love a good Wikipedia rabbit hole in search of some fun facts? Us too.
Little Miss Sunshine’s Wikipedia page has some interesting facts and anecdotes that we recommend you read through, but here are a few of our favorites:
Little Miss Sunshine was the feature film debut for married directing duo Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who had previously directed music videos, documentaries, and TV commercials. Among the bands they have directed videos for are R.E.M, Smashing Pumpkins, The Ramones, Oasis, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The duo followed up Little Miss Sunshine by reuniting with LMS stars Paul Dano and Steve Carell in Ruby Sparks (2012) and Battle of the Sexes (2017), respectively.
Speaking of Dano, he undertook his own multi-day vow of silence to prepare for the role of Dwayne.
And speaking of Carell, he was a relative unknown in Hollywood at the time of his casting, having only really been known as a correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The role of Frank was originally written for Bill Murray, and there was also pressure from the studio to cast Robin Williams.
The original script, written by Michael Arndt (who won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for LMS), initially had the family going on an East Coast road trip from Maryland to Florida, but had to be changed to a New Mexico-to-California one because of budget issues. The first draft of the script was written over just three days in 2000.
Ellen: I looked up this script for help with the synopsis, and the original first pageant was called “Little Miss Crab Cake.”
Arndt, who prior to becoming a full-time screenwriter had been a script reader and personal assistant for actor Matthew Broderick, has also written or co-written Toy Story 3, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. His Oscar nomination for his work on Toy Story 34 made him the first person ever to be nominated for both Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay for their first two screenplays.
Many of the problems with the Volkswagen Microbus shown in the movie (e.g., broken clutch, stuck horn, detached door) were based on real-life experiences Arndt had during a childhood road trip in a similar kind of van.
Arndt’s script was partially influenced by a newspaper article about Arnold Schwarzenegger talking to a group of high schoolers about how he “despises” losers. Arndt opted to satirize that mindset throughout the movie, saying:
“And I thought there's something so wrong with that attitude ... I wanted to ... attack that idea that in life you're going up or you're going down ... So to a degree, a child beauty pageant is the epitome of the ultimate stupid meaningless competition people put themselves through.”
Tyler: Having just read Arnold’s most recent book, I can confirm that he does in fact hate losers and a loser mentality. I suppose you don’t look like him by adhering to nuance.
Regarding the film’s beauty pageant, co-director Jonathan Dayton said that “... it was very important to us that the film not be about pageants. It's about being out of place, it's about not knowing where you're going to end up.” All of the contestants competing against Abigail Breslin’s character were real-life pageant contestants and performed their own acts they had done in previous competitions.
Breslin wore a padded suit during filming to give her character a more “plump” figure.
While the family dances to Rick James’ “Superfreak” in the film, this was added in post-production on the suggestion from the music supervisor. The original screenplay had “Peach” by Prince, whereas the ZZ Top song “Gimme All Your Lovin’” was used during filming.
At the Oscars, Little Miss Sunshine was nominated for four awards: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress for Abigail Breslin, Best Supporting Actor for Alan Arkin (who won), and Best Original Screenplay for Michael Arndt (who also won).
Oscar NomNomNomz
Since we all know a movie is nothing without the food and drink it incorporates.
It’s now time to award the Oscar for Best Snacktor in a Supporting Role5. And the nomnomnominees are:
A bucket of fried chicken and salad for dinner
Waffles “a la modey" at breakfast
A gas station slushie
And the Oscar goes to … waffles a la modey! Unfortunately, Tyler (being a breakfast lover with a sweet tooth) absconded with the winner, so Ellen will accept this award on its behalf.
Fill In The Blank
How did we really feel about The Academy nominating this?
Ellen: I’d like to assure The Academy that it’s okay to enjoy ice cream! And on the subject, I love this movie for managing to achieve such sweetness without being saccharine. It’s an extremely successful version of “here’s this dysfunctional family that maybe possibly hates each other, but they can come together when it counts.” I am bought in on all of these people thanks to the writing and performances, even when they annoy me (Dwayne and Richard, SIRS). From a plot and filmmaking perspective, as I said with The Green Mile, things that happen matter! It feels like just slice-of-life silliness for Frank to get porn magazines or for Olive to be bored and give Dwayne eye tests, but instead of true randomness, we get a knit, cohesive plot that I really appreciate. Could you argue that it takes a turn for the unbelievable when Frank’s ex just happens to be at the gas station? Of course. But they did the work to make me overlook that, and all I care about is the family and letting Olive be Olive.
Tyler: I’d like to help The Academy push this movie up to 20 MPH so we can all jump in and enjoy the ride. There’s so much to like about this movie. To start, the casting department and actors knocked it out of the park with each of the main characters, there’s not a single weak link in this ensemble cast. As is referenced in the intro, I appreciated that they all look like normal people, which helps add to the overall sense of realism.
To that end, while there are some moments that would clearly only happen in a movie, the characters and situations are well-written enough that they at least contribute to the plot and/or give the characters some depth. (“Realistic characters in some unrealistic situations” is how I wrote it in my notes.) And while the characters (minus Olive) all seem one-note in the beginning, we get deeper glimpses of not just them but their relationships with each other as well (the Grandpa-Olive one being a standout). That seems difficult to do with a large-ish ensemble, but the screenwriter pulls off quite well over the course of just two hours.
Let The Credits Roll
Thanks for reading! Some quick housekeeping as you exit the theatre:
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Post-Credits Scene
Get a sneak peek at the next ILTBTA installment.
We here at ILTBTA love a theme, and that is why we’re proud to present our latest gambit: Romeo and July-et! For the month of July, we’ll be exploring the various adaptations of the iconic play that have been nominated for Best Picture. See our schedule below, and no, we’re not ignoring the Baz Luhrmann one from 1996 - we’re just as surprised as you that it wasn’t nominated!
July 2: Romeo and Juliet (1936)
July 16: Romeo and Juliet (1968)
July 30: Shakespeare in Love (1998)
The first two R&J’s are available to rent from the usual suspect, and Shakespeare in Love is available to watch for free with a Max subscription.
Until then, don’t snort heroin, probably! We really wouldn’t know.
Sounds like my ex-wife!
Ellen: I had just assumed it was cocaine - I didn’t know snorting heroin was an option! I am a square.
Tyler: Me neither! We are squares.
Tyler: This moment was surprisingly tender! Totally came out of left field given all the inappropriate stuff his dad had said (to the adults at least) up until this point.
For those wondering, Best Adapted Screenplay is awarded to a script based on previously established material. The Academy considers all sequels to be adapted since they are based on the story and characters of the original movie.
Results tabulated and certified by the accountants at Ernst & Yum™.