As one gets older and it feels like responsibilities seemingly get larger by the second, it becomes much more apparent how much the small victories matter. That’s said not to sound like a gross, digitally marbleized self-help account on Instagram, but to reiterate the idea thatself-improvement on any scaleis worth taking note of. In a culture that seems to be in constant competition with itself, it’s nice to know that there’s still room to see the simple fact of our survival as success, with everything else coming as an added benefit.
With that sentiment in mind, who wouldn’t want to try and be the best version of themselves, no matter how small the scale? A win is a win, no matter how small; however you cut that cake, the definition of the word loses none of its gravity. Thankfully filmmakers Jonathon Dayton and Valerie Davis share these ideals too, or at least their filmLittle Miss Sunshinesure as hell does.
A Story About Winning - Starring a Bunch of Losers
Funnily enough,Little Miss Sunshineis a film about a family of complete ‘losers,’ at least by the cruel standards of a competitive society. The roster includes — Richard (a convincing Greg Kinnear), a father whose motivational speaking circuit can’t seem to make it past its own first steps; Edwin (the endearing Alan Arkin), a drug-addicted grandfather; Dwayne, a voluntarily mute son (Paul Dano, always at his bestwhen playing the weirdest person in the room); Sheryl (the iconic Toni Collette), an overworked and underappreciated wife seemingly along for the ride; and Frank (played by Steve Carrell), who has just recovered from a suicide attempt after losing his job and the love of his life.
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As you may see, this is not exactly a group that has a lot going for them (based on our cultural standards). Each character’s personal macguffin is used less as a springboard for sympathy, but rather to give one other character multiple chances to heroically save the day, and highlights how those devices play into the theme of victory. Thus, the collective morale of the Hoover family is left in the warm little hands of their seven-year-old daughter, Olive (an ebullient Abigail Breslin).
Little Miss Sunshine Uses Innocence as a Narrative Tool
Old enough to show tangible ambition yet young enough to not have that wavered by the bully that is reality, Olive is an aspiring beauty queen who recently qualified for the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. For a seven-year-old in the southwest, this is the Super Bowl of pageantry. With that, the family embarks on a journey to enter their daughter in the competition, and the journey is exactlythe road tripnightmare sequence you might imagine it to be.
Their van breaks down, meaning they’ll now have to push it along the road until it gets fast enough to switch gears. Not to mention the horn won’t stop honking on its own, leading to its own set of annoyances and Dean Norris cameos. Personal strife also presents obstacles for our individual characters as well. Richard loses a crucial business venture while on the road, and Frank encounters the ex-lover who prompted his suicide attempt (soundtracked by Conway Twitty’sFifteen Years Ago, one of the moreunderrated needle dropsin recent film memory). Dwayne learns his vow of silence for flight school is all for naught when it’s revealed that he’s colorblind, and Edwin eventually has a heart attack, leading the family to have to smuggle his remains out of the hospital to still make Olive’s pageant on time.
Despite all this, the group manages to enter Olive at the last second, but not before noticing the disparities between their contestant and her competitors. Dressing rooms are crowded with grossly glamorized, overly sexualized and all around unnervingly dolled up pre-teen girls. Concerned that their amateur entrant will surely be humiliated, Dwayne and Richard try and gently discourage her from going on stage. Regardless, Sheryl insists they need to “Let Olive be Olive,” and she goes on. What follows is quite possibly one of the most chaotically heartwarming scenes in all of cinema.
Breaking a Leg Rather Than Breaking Spirits
It’s time for Olive’s dance routine, the music of which has been handpicked by her now former coach and late grandfather, Edwin. His song of choice?Super Freakby Rick James. Even in the face of what any sensible individual would only call legalized child porn, the child pageant judges are disgusted by this little girl busting a move to a funk tune with subject matter that Olive is so hilariously oblivious to. After judges and audience members call for her removal from the stage, the rest of the family joins in the number, leading to an all too awkward yet beautifully crafted scene of a family uniting under the motive of keeping Olive’s mountain-sized confidence intact.
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She ends up losing the contest (a surprise to no one); in fact she loses so badly that they’re told she is never allowed to enter a beauty contest in the state of California again. This news doesn’t break the hearts of our characters nor the audience — Olive’s victory is one with a permanence way beyond gold-coated plastic and blue ribbons. She just won her and her family a new outlook on life, happiness, and a taste of what true winning feels like.
Resilience as a Weapon in Little Miss Sunshine
For the Hoover family, victory is characterized almost entirely by the response to defeat. Winning is an innately easy adjective for anyone to attach to themselves in the absence of struggle and strife. Naturally, when roadblocks make themselves visible, that ‘winning’ attitude of deserving or expecting victory begins to wane, and with it a lot of ambition. InLittle Miss Sunshine, we see most of the discouragements of modern life personified in our supporting cast. Addiction, financial instability, heartbreak, dreams and delusions take their respective turns kicking appointed victims while they’re down. Adulthood and its many reasons for disillusion and giving up on dreams are displayed in this film to be no match for the fervor of childlike ambition and joy in the hands of our story’s hero.
Olive Hoover’s crowning achievement is the ability to show what true victory looks like. Not accomplishment without turbulence, but true determination in the midst of a world that continuously spits in the face of lofty aspiration; the determination and drive of those wonderful people society deems ‘weirdos’ and ‘losers.’ In the film’s climax, Olive acts as the last-ditch effort at redemption of any sort, of salvation for the Hoovers as a collective. It’s a telling sign of development from our co-stars when they join Olive on stage for her dance routine, in order to not only preserve her spirit but demonstrate the thesis of the narrative.
Instead of meeting pushback with despondence, Olive shows resilience at levels of inspiration only possible from a beacon of innocence and hope. So maybe, just maybe, the Hoovers can learn a thing or two about the true nature of winners and losers. Like Edwin says to Olive earlier in the film, “A real loser is someone so afraid of not winning they don’t even try.” For this film, victory reads as perseverance above accolades, something encouraging in a world of curated highlights.
