I am a film studies student at my local college and i have just written a review about this film for a piece of coursework so i thought why not put it on here to see what people think about it, some bits may be too technical but it was for a piece of coursework.

i have cut it down and taken some of the technical aspects out of it.

Little Miss Sunshine is about Olive, she is a little girl dreaming of becoming Miss America someday. When she wins a spot to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in California, her family decides to take her on a road trip in their VW microbus. Her father, Richard, is a motivational speaker on the verge of bankruptcy. His wife, Sheryl , doesn't really get along with him, and her brother Frank has attempted suicide after a failed romance with a male graduate student and losing his job. Olive's brother, Dwayne is a big follower of Nietzsche and has taken a vow of silence. Her grandfather who is Richard's father is an old hippie with a heroin addiction.

The Little road trip takes on some unexpected turns. Richard finds out his business partner Stan has canceled their deal. He gets into a big argument with Sheryl, while Frank is stuck in depression-land. Then grandpa passes away and jeopardizes the whole trip. Finally, they arrive in Redondo Beach and the family must learn to stick together for Olive's sake. When they arrive at the pagent Olive performs a dance to Rick James' "Super freak" based on stripper moves her grandfather taught her. Chaos ensues as the pageant officials freak out. The entire family in support of Olive join her onstage and dance with her. Then they are all sitting outside hotel security and she promises that she will never compete in a pageant in the state of California again in exchange for the pageant not pressing charges. Finally, they push start the VW bus, jump in, crash through the security gate to the chagrin of the snotty pageant lady, and drive off into the sunset.

In this study I will analyse the scene from when Olive wakes up and says to her parents “mom, dad, grandpa wont wake up!” I will indicate how our knowledge and understanding of narrative and genre enables us to read and respond to this piece of film. This comes in at the disruption part of the film as grandpa has become ill and wont wake up on the road trip and they need to do something about this. When they get to the hospital after a while they announce that he has died.

In our opening shot of the screen we have a point of view shot of olive saying to her parents “mom, dad grandpa won’t wake up” there is then a sharp cut into a tracking shot of the ambulance taking grandpa to the hospital. At this point in the film it makes the audience feel anxious and nervous because you don’t know what is going to happen to grandpa and if olive will be able to make the beauty pageant on time as it is tomorrow. The hospital announces grandpa’s death and the family decide that they are going to take his body in the car with him because that is what he would have wanted for olive. After they place his body in the camper there is a cut into a classic photographic road movie image, with the sun shinning down on the vehicle, blue skies and a tracking shot which gives us a sense of movement that we are going on the journey with the family. Together with music which is a blues sort of style music guitar based which is a typical that is playing we are given some of the classic iconography of a road movie.

We then see some low angle shots of the bridges and roads above, then there is a whip pan into a tracking shot which shows the iconic long straight road that the family are pursuing to California which is the traditional and mythical final frontier. This reminded me of Kerouac’s comment that “road is life” and it shows us that this is a feature of the classic road movie.

There is then some discussion in the car and the audience is made to panic when the horn gets stuck on the car and the camper is pulled over by the police. When the policeman pulls up we then get two pieces of sound iconography of a road movie as the car engine and the bike engine are heard in the foreground, this made me think of Easy Rider as the policeman was on a motorbike. As were the two main protagonists in easy rider as they travelled their whole journey on two motorbikes. Also we hear the policeman’s broad American accent we get another verbal signifier that this is a road movie as we can tell that it is set in America. The audience will be worried for the family as they know that grandpa’s body is in the boot and the strong, harsh, American voice of the police officer makes the audience realise that he means business. Richard is made to open the boot, as he did this I felt worried for him knowing he was going to get busted. I also felt sorry for olive because her trip would have ended and there would have been no beauty pageant for her. Also it makes the audience feel emotional when this occurs because her grandpa would have wanted olive to compete in the pageant.

After a short time of about two minutes of tension and anxiousness the policeman decides not to bust the family as he finds some porn in the boot which interests him and takes them and says that he’ll let them off this time as that’s his favourite porn magazine. This goes against the Americans ideology, beliefs and values as the porn would have demoralised people and is not seen as a good thing which is another piece of iconography as most road movies have some drugs, murders or sexual scenes in them. The audience then would respond as a bit of humour as he would prefer porn to suit his needs than arrest people to suite his country. I also drew a sigh of relief for the family, especially olive and it drew me back into the movie as I wanted to carry on the journey to see if olive was going to make it to the pageant and to see how she performed.

The jolly blues music then plays as they some what bobsleigh like off as their car is still broken.

In narrative terms I thought of this scene in relation to Todorov’s theory of narrative structure which talks of all classic stories going through a series of phases and transformations and as the scene goes through all phases which are ;

Equilibrium – Disruption – Action to the remedy of disruption – Reduction and Re Equilibrium

In the scene we start of with the Equilibrium and then the disruption is closely followed with the death of grandpa and they then think the journey is over and olive will never make the pageant. The action to this remedy is the struggle to get grandpa’s body out of the window in secret as they have to do this because a dead body has to be certified in order to pass across states. The equilibrium is restored when the car is back on the road and the journey is again began with everybody, including the audience relieved, happy and then drawn back into the film as they want to know what is going to happen next.

In terms of narrative character types there were some differences to the classic types identified by Propp. In this theory of narrative the heroes were male and in this movie the hero is expected to be olive who is a young female. The movie also went along with the protagonists going from anti hero to hero as grandpa was a hippie who snorted cocaine which drugs also feature in another road movie “Easy rider” in which there journey was about drugs and having a good time. He then brought up olive and they were off to the beauty pageant still together even if it was only grandpa’s body and soul they were taking with them. Olive was made to be the one of the main protagonists and also she was given the little princess role from Propp’s theory.

There isn’t really a clear narrative theme to the film but one theme that could be identified is mouse vs. man. Which would be the family vs. America in this story as 5 close individuals teamed up to take on America as they attempted to cross America from east to west to California just to go to a beauty pageant for olive.

The end of the scene leaves us with more questions we can ask our selves as it is of the iconic roads, vehicle and surroundings as we wonder if the bus will make the journey to the pageant and how olive will do. As the tracking shot shows the bus, with the characters in on their way to the pageant. It is almost giving us the feeling that they are travelling into the unknown as they don’t know what will happen to them next.

Overall I think that little miss sunshine shows some of the iconic features of the classic road movie and has all the narrative structures and theories in for a road movie. It generates its audience response from the apprehensions and excitement through the journey as they do not know what will happen next and if it will be a good or a bad thing.