I'm currently working my way through all the DVD's on offer, free to me for 2 nights, at my gym. I picked up this one because I wanted to watch a comedy and this had been deemed as 'Hilarious'.
It was released in 2006 but I don't recall much publicity about it. The storyline sounds (and is) very basic but I think the director (Jonathon Daton) was pinning his hopes on creating some interesting and comical characters to bring the film to live - 'hoping' as on 'he failed'.
Basically, the film is about a young girl's family and their vain attempt to travel half way across their country to California so that she can enter the finals of a beauty Paget to which she has successful been accepted into. However, the journey doesn't go smoothly, especially in the old Volkswagen van!
I read the back of the DVD and was interested in the character descriptions of the 'Hoover family':
1. Olive - Olive is the 9 year old girl to which the film resolves. She's no beauty queen but she has a very likeable personality and is genuinely a lovely character. She dreams of being like the ladies who win the beauty pageants; standing in front of crowds, dressed in gowns and crowns etc... and she practises her own 'talent' of dancing with the assistance and guidance of her grandfather (the routine is revealed at the
end of the film, much to our shock!).
2. Richard Hoover (the dad) - I absolutely HATED this character. He's a motivational speaker and has an obsession with his theory of the '9 Steps' which is something to do with reaching success. He considers anyone who gives up to be a looser and teaches his 9 year old daughter that you're only a winner if you're successful in everything you do which of course, is completely wrong! I was outranged at one point in the film, whereby the family are ordering breakfast and Olive orders Ice-cream and pancakes. He turns round and tells her that it will make her fat and the ladies in the beauty pageant are fat. If she wants to be a 'winner' she can't be fat, so she shouldn't eat the ice cream. Olive gets really worried. What kind of a message is this to young girls! He's a boring, irritating character.
3. Sheryl Hoover (the mum) - Her character didn't really come through. In fact, she might as well have not even been in the film, had this not been about a family that is. She had a medium acting part but I barely remember any of her parts and she didn't seem to have a significant role within the family. She was just, sort of ''there''.
4. Frankie (Uncle) - I think this character was 'meant' to be quite funny. He is being looked after by his sister (the mum) because of his depression which drove him to suicide. The family tell Olive all about this which again, I find inappropriate for a 9 yr old girl. I didn't think he was particularly funny. The actor, Steve Carell who plays 'Evan' in 'Brue/ Evan almighty) acting really well and I did enjoy watching him perform but the character wasn't great overall. Just another figure amongst the crowd.
5. Dwayne Hoover (elder brother) - Dwayne is the rebellious teenager who hates his family and dreams of nothing more than escaping from them. He didn't say much in the film - literally! In fact, it was well over half way through the film before he actually said anything due to his 'vow of silence' (which apparently he had taken 9 months ago) until he reached his dream of becoming a pilot. Because of this, he was a little boring though despite this, his character was really prominent and I actually enjoyed watching him do and say nothing (or perhaps it was because I found him attractive!).
6. Grandpa Edwin Hoover - This is dad of the dad. He's meant to be a comical character - a drug sniffing, porno elderly man with a big gob. I didn't find him funny at all and half way through the film, he's gone for good (you'll find out why if you ever bother to watch this).
Along the way, the Hoovers face some problems. They need to be at the pageant by exactly1pm. Their Volkswagen can't stop when it gets going and then it develops a very annoying problem whereby the horn constantly beeps - Not funny or original at all! There's also a little misfortune concerning the Grandpa but how the family deal with this is not amusing or original either. When they arrive at the pageant (Yes they arrive - I doubt you were on tenterhooks anyway) albeit late, the contest is full of dazzling talented young girls and then there is Olive, who performs the secret routine designed by her Grandpa - remember, he is a porno old man so you can only imagine the sort of thing he has taught her.
Then, the film just seems to end. The family travel all that way and the film is devoted to that journey, only for it to end within a couple of minutes and then the family return home. WHAT!
Honestly, this is one of the worst and most boring films after 'Open Water' that I have ever watch. The plot is dull, the storyline boring and unoriginal and the characters insignificant. I can't see how it won 2 Oscars. I can't even say that it is designed to teach a moral about family or values because it doesn't seem to have any. What kind of film teaches young girls or children that fat people are losers or people that don't win in everything they do are failures!? I wouldn't even say it's a family film. Dwayne calls his family a bunch of losers and writes that he 'hates everyone' so there isn't any bond here. The dad shows dislike for Frankie, the parents don't get along very well and have several arguments etc...it's just a rowdy bunch of very different people thrown together in an old dodgy Volkswagen van.
I'd never watch this again and I can see why it got so little publicity! The film is slightly under 2 hours long - any longer and I would have just turned it off.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 2004 - Comedy - Director: John Hay - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jimi Mistry, Kate Miles, Dougray Scott
Comedy - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: Tessa Peake-Jones, Buster Merryfield, David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst
Comedy - Director: Richard Boden, Mandie Fletcher, Martin Shardlow - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Hugh Laurie, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed, Tim McInnerny, Tony Robinson, Rowan Atkinson
Comedy - Director: Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Carol Cleveland, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones
Odd that you didn't see any publicity for this little gem given that it was one of the five movies nominated for best film at the Academy Awards - the single most publicized event of the movie calendar. While I would never suggest that awards are the only sign of a film's worth, I think you need to at least comment on the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay when you mention how unoriginal and dull you found the movie. You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, but when the weight of critical opinion is against you, you should acknowledge that you may be in the minority.
Also I think you should go through and tidy up the spelling errors (Paget, Brue, looser) and fix the random capitalization of words as these mistakes were a little distracting.
An interesting effort, cheers.
Take a hilarious ride with the Hoovers, one of the most endearingly fractured families in ... more
comedy history.Father Richard (Greg Kinnear) is desperately trying to sell his motivational success programme... with no success. Meanwhile, pro-honesty mom Shery...
Advantages: Lovely bizarre road movie, perfectly balancing family dilemma and humour Disadvantages: Can seem slow and, sometimes, a little over the top
![Little Miss Sunshine [DVD] [2006]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78189332.jpg "Little Miss Sunshine [DVD] [2006]")
Oct 1st, 2009
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