Little Miss Sunshine

The road movie is a classic form that does what it says on the tin: characters hit the road, and meet with adventure along the way. America was where the genre was born. With its wide-open spaces, vast, sweeping vistas and the cult of the car, roads are the stuff of drama and romance there, rather than the stuff of potholes and traffic jams, as they can be in Britain.

Travelling, as all families will know, can be a bumpy ride. Little Miss Sunshine features an 800-mile journey from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Redondo Beach, California in a cramped camper van, to take pre-teen Olive (Abigail Breslin) to a beauty contest. Making this journey with her are five members of her colourful extended family.

We don’t hear much from Olive’s teenaged half-brother, Dwayne (Paul Dano), who has taken a vow of silence. However, the same cannot be said of her heroin-using grandfather, Edwin (Alan Arkin), with whom she has a special bond. Olive’s uncle Frank (Steve Carell) is a gay Proust scholar suffering from depression, while her parents, mum Sheryl (Toni Collette) and unemployed motivational speaker father Richard (Greg Kinnear), struggle to keep the engine ticking over.

Throw this dysfunctional bunch into a confined space (a camper van) and put them under pressure (said camper van is prone to breakdowns), and you have the makings of explosive, character-driven drama. Little Miss Sunshine delivers it in a quirky style with delicious touches of black humour. Ultimately, it sees this strange family unit coming together in support of adorable oddball Olive, who is, inevitably, the real star of the show.

The story behind the film

So crucial was the casting of Olive that a worldwide search was mounted several years before filming began. Abigail Breslin (above) was first seen when she was only six years old, and too young to play Olive. But the film-makers were so convinced she was right that they kept an eye on her. By the time filming started, Abigail was the perfect age.