Little Miss Sunshine

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

Release Date: July 28th, 2006

Starring: Steve Carell, Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Courteney Cox Arquette, Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin

Directed by: Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton 

Premise: A neurotic Maryland family travels to Florida so their 8-year-old daughter can compete in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant.

[SiliasRuby]

Soooo Going to see this.

[Pubrick]

the premise of this story is affecting me deeply. the trailer, not so much.

[RegularKarate]

the premise of this story is affecting me deeply. the trailer, not so much.

you know better than anyone else not to pay attention to the trailer.
I've heard really good things about this... they also directed the Monk Academy skit for Mister Show and I think Carell looks great in this.

[modage]

yes, its amazing when a movie can look simultaneously good and bad.  but i think this will be GOOD.  i'm excited because dayton/faris are awesome and some of the last music video directors i care about making the transition to feature films.

[pete]

DEVOTCHKA did the music!

[cron]

i'm excited because dayton/faris are awesome and some of the last music video directors i care about making the transition to feature films.

bingo.

[modage]

Premise: A neurotic Maryland family travels to Florida so their 8-year-old daughter can compete in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant.

this is hilariously wrong.  its actually a neurotic Arizona family traveling to California.

[hedwig]

it would've been better with florida. 

the title made more sense then too.

[Kal]

it would've been better with florida. 

the title made more sense then too.

correct.

[pete]

the new trailer (withou the devotcka score ) looks fabulous:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/littlemisssunshine/

[modage]

it's good. perhaps a little too sundancey at times, but its enjoyable.  music is great though.

[MacGuffin]

The functional route to family dysfunction
During filming of the Sundance hit `Little Miss Sunshine,' camaraderie came first, even if it did make acting out the acrimony a bit tougher.
Source: Los Angeles Times

"Little Miss Sunshine" may be the best R-rated family film out this summer — of course, it is also the only R-rated family film out this summer.

The Fox Searchlight release, due to close out the Los Angeles Film Festival next Sunday before its general release July 26, follows the dysfunctional Hoover family after 7-year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin) is surprisingly propelled to the finals of the beauty pageant of the title. The indie film, shot in 30 days for under $8 million, stars Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear as her parents, Steve Carell as her suicidal uncle, Paul Dano as her angry teen brother and Alan Arkin as Grandpa — a man of many inappropriate habits. Despite its farcical elements, the film aims for realism, examining a family in all its unbeautified complexity. Its aim was true at the Sundance film festival this year, where it sold for a record $10.5 million.

Arguably a couple of dozen curse words and a drug scene or two away from a PG-13 rating, the movie and its message nonetheless have a universal, even heartwarming appeal. That family dynamic was vital to the film shoot as well.

Staging a kid klatch

Filmmakers were shooting a pint-sized beauty pageant last July in a steaming hot ballroom at the Radisson Hotel in Culver City — it was all balloons, gold Mylar and scurrying cast and crew. Real pageant contestants were recruited as extras for the scene and sat fully coiffed and made up, wearing assorted tiny evening gowns and bathing suits, their parents in tow. Crew members' kids were present too, in decidedly less-glamorous outfits, watching the proceedings on monitors.

Production designer Kalina Ivanov was introducing her son Charlie, 10. "Welcome to the kid-friendly set," she smiled. Nearby, a baby slept, oblivious to the surrounding action.

"The film is about a family, a very real family," noted executive producer Jeb Brody, as a cast member's youngster wandered by, "and families have been a part of the experience of making the movie."

It was a tone set by the first-time feature film directors — husband and wife Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. First assistant director Thomas Smith was aided by second AD Greg Smith, his brother. Brody added, "This hasn't been a movie where people have been like, 'It's 4 a.m., let's go out and get loaded.' This has been, 'Let's go home, I have to be with my kids.' "

Even before filming began, the first goal for the directors was to create that sense of family among the actors. The directors held a week of rehearsals that focused on building familial bonds rather than reading lines and even sent the actors out on a field trip to go bowling. "One week allowed us to create years of family interactions," said Dayton.

Some actors may have bonded a little too well: Dano, who plays the 15-year-old Dwayne with a mute fury, occasionally had a hard time staying enraged. "It's been maybe too much fun," he said of the shoot as it neared its last day. "My character takes a vow of silence for nine months from his family because he doesn't like them, and these people are too likable, so it was hard to shut them out."

Fortunately, many scenes took place in an un-air-conditioned VW van near Palmdale, in temperatures over 100 degrees, and misery was slightly easier to create. But even then, "I was sitting next to Alan Arkin for a couple of weeks," Dano enthused, "so that was great." The two talked about jazz and traded favorite CDs.

In his trailer awaiting his last scene, Arkin mentioned a cast and crew dinner the previous evening that had been unexpectedly touching.

"I've been to a lot of cast parties before, but I've never been to one where everybody gets up to speak and starts sobbing," he said. "And these are people who've just known each other for five or six weeks. It's what it should always be like, and is — maybe if you're lucky — 10% to 20% of the time."

He had reservations about working with two directors but found the script by Michael Arndt so beautifully written that he agreed to do it. "And they're terrific leaders," he said of Faris and Dayton, who have 20 years of experience directing music videos and commercials together. "They have a very clear vision of what they want, and if somebody comes along with an idea that's exciting, they're happy to bend and go with it."

He praised all his costars as well, calling Abigail "kind of a miracle. She doesn't need any direction. She doesn't demand extra attention. She listens and contributes and is just one of the team."

Respect all around

At the same time, Breslin was free to be a little girl on-set. She initiated pajama day, which had about three participants showing up in PJs. Converse (sneaker) Friday had a better turnout. She said she was going to be sad when the shoot was over, "but at least you know that it was really fun, and that's why you're sad."

Kim Breslin, her mother, pointed out that while this is her daughter's seventh film, there was something different about this shoot. "On this set I really felt a deep respect for her as a human being, not just a little girl, and I think that's hard to find sometimes in movies. For most kids working in film, their character doesn't have a point of view or a huge contribution to make, and in this movie, Olive really was a valuable member of the family and had as much value as everybody else," and the actress was treated likewise.

Between takes during the pageant scenes, Collette called the shoot "an amazing experience. I'm not always in love with being at work. I find it really exhausting; it's just sometimes overwhelming. But this has been nothing but fun. It's a great group of people, and as you can see, it's a great atmosphere on-set." She credited the filmmakers: "They're just such lovely, down-to-earth people."

Amid the managed chaos of contestants, a bearded Carell added, "They have a great rapport with one another." Carell — who described his character as "the most lovable suicidal Proust scholar that the movies have seen at least in the last 18 months" — added that having two directors has also been helpful "because they can multitask that much more than they would already. One of them can be talking to the actors about their performances, and the other can be setting the camera angle and lights."

Sure enough, between setups, Faris conferred with a crew member while Dayton, in a black porkpie hat, raced over from camera to actor to give notes. "People laugh at me because I run to the actors, but it feels good," Dayton said.

Film days were relatively short because of Abigail's work restrictions, but, halfway through shooting, the film was still ahead of schedule. The directors gave much of the credit to their cast and crew. Four years of preparation helped too, they said, referring to the time they waited for the film to be greenlighted.

"We had put ourselves through a lot of the staging, so we already had a fair amount to give the actors once they came on the set," Faris said.

"That's the benefit of two directors," Dayton said.

"We'd act them out really poorly," Faris said.

"In our garage," Dayton added.

In preproduction, the filmmakers had briefly considered whether to try to cut language and scenes to accommodate a PG-13 rating but quickly realized that would compromise the movie.

"I'd rather think of this as a multigenerational film than a 'family film,' " said Dayton. "I'm hoping that 13-year-olds will connect because it's true, and 40-year-olds will connect, and 70-year-olds will connect."

[JG]

i love the trailer with sufjan.   i'm hoping this movie works. 

[modage]

i love the trailer with sufjan.   i'm hoping this movie works. 

i think its going to fall into that Garden State category where it will be loved and hated. 

Courteney Cox Arquette

she is not in this film.

Exclusive: Directors of Little Miss Sunshine
Source: Edward Douglas
July 24, 2006

Husband and wife directing team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have been pioneers in the world of MTV and music videos for many years, having directed award-winning videos for the likes of Smashing Pumpkins and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as having produced the early MTV show "The Cutting Edge." Now they're taking a different approach to directing with their first feature length film, the family road trip comedy Little Miss Sunshine.

It's a movie about the Hoover family, who find themselves driving to California in a cramped and malfunctioning VW bus, when seven-year-old Olive, played by Abigail Breslin, is accepted as one of the finalists in a beauty pageant. Her parents, played by Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette, end up bringing along her rebellious brother Dwayne (Paul Dano), her drug snorting-grandfather (Alan Arkin) and her suicidal uncle Frank (Steve Carell) on the disastrous but often hilarious trip.

ComingSoon.net recently talked to the directors about their new movie. Having been married for many years, they've gotten just as good at finishing each other's sentences, as they have at collaborating on a multitude of projects.

ComingSoon.net: How did you come across Michael Arndt's script and decide that was going to be your first feature film as directors?
Jonathan Dayton: We've looked at many scripts over the years, and when we got the script from Ron Yurksa , who produced "Election" and was involved with "Crumb" and a lot of movies we loved. When we first heard about it, we first thought, "I don't know, a family road trip movie?" It just didn't appeal to us, but when we read the script, we were just struck by this original voice.
Valerie Faris: And the characters. It was the first time I read about characters I really liked. I just flet like I could totally relate to them, and they seemed really lifelike and truthful to me. I feel like so many scripts I read, the characters always disappoint me. They just do stupid things or you can tell the writer doesn't really like the characters or there's a certain disdain for the characters. For us, it mattered to make films about people who we actually liked and admired and respected.
Dayton: They all wanted something out of life. We could relate to that, and most characters don't have that. They don't live in a universe, they live in a...
Faris: movie...
Dayton:...in a story structure, so this just felt like...
Faris:... like these characters live in the world we live in, more than so many scripts that we read or films that we see. I feel that films take place in film world to much, and I loved where this film went in terms of what this group of people go through and I felt that at every turn, I liked...
Dayton:... their choices, their rebellious spirit that they ultimately take on.

CS: Since this is really your first feature film as directors, had you wanted to do something like this for a long time and it just came along at the right moment?
Dayton: We've loved doing music videos and documentaries and commercials, so while doing a film was something that we wanted to do, it was not necessarily something we had to do at any moment. We really felt that the only reason to do a film was if we had a script that we loved deeply that would allow us to spend this much amount of time.
Faris: We had developed other projects at different times, and one writer we worked with said, "My criteria is would I spend money for a babysitter to go see this movie?" That was it for us. Would we want to watch this movie? 'Cause so many movies are kind of interesting and you can appreciate it on some level. Like as a filmmaker, it might be interesting to do those scenes, but I really want to go see it? Do I care enough to go see it? This film was different that way.

CS: I remember hearing about the movie when I interviewed Greg Kinnear and thought it was a great idea, but it was very different from what I expected. It's interesting that you can be told what the movie is about but still not know what to expect.
Dayton: That's what I hope. I think that people will hear a little bit about what it's about, but will know more that tonally, it's different than what you might expect.

CS: Of course, when you think of a family road comedy, you think of something like "National Lampoon's Vacation"...
Dayton: Right, and we were really determined to not go there.
Faris: I haven't studied that film...
Dayton: Yeah, we haven't seen it actually...
Faris: ...but it wasn't a hard thing to avoid for us, because it did not even seem like a relative of that movie to us.
Dayton: But I think that's the danger. I feel like what's important and I hope people will realize as they read about this, is that it's not anything like that movie or "Weekend at Bernie's" or that it's a beauty pageant movie. It's really about these six eccentric characters and how they coexist.
Faris: It was the characters and working with great performers that really appealed to us, not the storyline. Obviously, the storyline is far from something we thought we'd want to do, but it just felt like movies we liked. When we read it, we thought this is as close to a great old Hal Ashby film or even Almodovar a little bit, because his films are tragic stories often, but also funny, and he loves his characters and that's what appeals to us.

CS: Had these characters already been developed in Michael's script or did you work on them a bit with the actors?
Dayton: They were very well developed in the script.
Faris: We probably worked on the Richard character the most. I think the writer originally intended him as being a purely comic character, so we worked with him over a three-year period, and that character got just a little bit more fleshed-out. You could understand what made him tick a little more.
Dayton: But we kept saying the way to take this script to the next level is to actually shoot it, that the actors are going to bring all these qualities that you might not read on the page but were there in the hands of a good actor.
Faris: And they really did... What's there is pretty much how we always saw it when we first read it, but some people read it and saw a much broader film or more zany.

CS: As far as the casting, Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette might have seemed obvious, since they had done roles like this before, but how did you come up with Steve Carrell? He's probably what a lot of people who see this will be talking about because he steals the scenes, but in a different way.
Faris: Because you're not expecting it. Our neighbor Brian Gordon is a director who had directed him in episodes of "The Office." He had worked with him and said, "You guys have to meet Steve. Steve's the greatest." We had always remembered him, the first time I saw him in "Bruce Almighty," it was like "that guy's amazing!" He stole it with that little part, and in "Anchorman" he was incredible and "The Daily Show," so we watched some episodes of "The Office," too, and I think that showed us sort of a different side that he could play this real character painfully funny. Then when we met with him, we were really excited by the idea, but meeting him completely sold us. He loved the script, he got the idea about the movie, he knew a little bit about us, and he really wanted to make this film the same way we saw it. He saw the same sort of film that we did and that was a big part of it.

CS: Without giving too much away, one of the highlights is the broken-down VW bus. Did you actually train the actors to push the van to get it going and then jump into it or was that done using stuntmen?
Dayton: Oh, no, it's all the actors.
Faris: You can look up close.
Dayton: There are no tow rigs. They pushed. We should find out how heavy that van is.
Faris: And the first time they pushed it, it wasn't exactly flat. It was a tiny bit uphill, and it was not easy getting it going fast enough. And they worked, and it was very hot.
Dayton: There were no stunt people but we had a stunt coordinator there to make sure everyone was safe.
Faris: They rehearsed Alan pulling Abbie [into the van]. Abbie was the one we were worried about the most or Alan, but Alan gets in right away. There was a little bit of gravel rockiness we tried to clear, but if someone tripped, it was definitely a serious thing even though the bus wasn't going that fast.
Dayton: But they all did it themselves.

CS: Have any of them been able to use that skill elsewhere?
Faris: Well, we had to. We were shooting, doing some pick-ups with Paul out on the highway and our bus broke down. Most of them actually work, but the one we were shooting in broke down...
Dayton: ..and we had to push it to the side of the road.

CS: Have you and your family ever taken a road trip like this?
Dayton: Oh, yeah. (laughs)
Faris: So many. I mean, I took a road trip with my family when I was growing up in a Winebago, across to Zion National Park, and it was just a series of mishaps, and I remember my father and I fighting a lot. And I just remember thinking that this is his hiatus, his break, and the thing broke down, and we had to stay in Salt Lake City for three days while they repaired it, and the airconditioning never worked. I think we've had some of our own family trips.
Dayton: It's definitely all from experience.

CS: Did you do a lot of research into beauty pageants? I've seen the documentary "Living Dolls" and recognized some of the girls from that.
Dayton: We saw those documentaries, but mainly, we went to these pageants and wanted to do a realistic, honest portrayal of them. We didn't want to editorialize. We just wanted to show real pageant kids, so all the kids who are in it are actual pageant kids doing their own acts, wearing their own costumes...
Faris: They've done their hair themselves and their make-up and they showed up ready to perform, but it's hard to present it in any way that is... for some people, they're going to find it incredibly offensive and shocking, but I don't know how we could have shown it without it having that effect.
Dayton: No, we didn't invent it. The key was just not to add anything, just to let people do what they do and you can draw your own conclusions.
Faris: Yeah, no girls fighting or tearing each other's hair out.

CS: The R-rating for the movie is kind of strange, because when you think "family road trip movie" you think family movie. Of course, there's the drugs and language, but did you ever think of toning down the swearing to get a lower rating?
Dayton: No, I think it was very important that this be a truthful depiction of family life, and the language is part of that.
Faris: The language just pushes it to a place... it was so important to feel the pressure they were under, and just to keep that sort of tension and on-edgeness of this family, and I think the language does help do that. When you're really upset, you say "f*ck." You don't say "darn." Like when Gregg says "F*ck!" when he's in the hospital and looking for a way out. His family is there, but it tells you where they're at. They're at the final...
Dayton: And "F*cking chicken" is so much funnier than "damn chicken."

CS: Who do you think this movie will appeal to most?
Dayton: Well, you know, it's interesting. We made the movie for ourselves and we wanted to make something that we liked, but what's been really thrilling is seeing the broad appeal. There are people in college seem to respond as well as any age group. In a way, I feel that younger audiences are the ones that I hope catch onto it, 'cause I think they're the ones that might not otherwise see the movie. I think people who are parents... and I just read that the AARP lists the movie among the Top 5 to see this summer. Which is great, but what's wild has been the pretty big spectrum.
Faris: I don't know. I think maybe it appeals more to a type of person than a certain age person. I hope it appeals to people like us. I think the most rewarding thing for us is that friends like the movie. People we like and respect have liked the movie. I felt like that's kind of who we made it for, but it's really reassuring to see that more people we don't know like it.
Dayton: People Dwayne's age. (Note: Dwayne is Paul Dano's character.)
Faris: I think there is a certain rebelliousness. Anybody that questions authority or has done something or wanted to do something bold. I hope it appeals to people like that.
Dayton: It's like "Harold and Maude." That movie, I think, is like a litmus test, and I feel this is that.

CS: Do you see this movie as one that maybe the older MTV generation might be able to appreciate?
Dayton: I hope. I mean, we put a lot of effort into the music and making sure that the music was not just this throwaway, gratuitous...
Faris:... pop soundtrack.
Dayton: I hope that if you love music, that will be one of the things that you find as an entry point. I hope that the people who liked our videos, like this movie. It's very different from our other work, but I think if you look deep, there are similarities. We were never part of the "fast cut" generation. We really liked to linger on a shot, and there are certain shots in this movie that last for a long time. You just have to sit.
Faris: We were tempted to do some scenes in one shot, but that was kind of our approach to shooting it was if you had one shot, what would it be?
Dayton: Where would be the best place to see this?
Faris: And try to cover the whole scene from that shot. I think that we always were bothered by the short attention span throwaway imagery, just images for images' sake, so I think this makes sense as the kind of thing we were looking for.
Dayton: We just showed it to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and they really liked the movie, so that was very fun.

CS: It's nice to see a first film from a music video director that isn't the type of fast-cut, effects-based movies that we often expect.
Faris: Michel Gondry's films had so much that you'd expect from Michel Gondry, but they're beautiful stories told so well, and extremely visual, but not ever gratuitous visuals.

Little Miss Sunshine opens in limited release on Wednesday, July 26.