Persistence of Sunshine
Persistence of Sunshine
The last few months have cast Little Miss Sunshine in its proper light. When it opened last July following an ecstatic debut at the Sundance Film Festival six months earlier, nearly everyone called it one of the most original and emotionally grounded family comedies seen in a long while. Quirky and perky, sometimes despairing in tone but intimate and knowing — a movie with smarts and verve and finesse.
Sunshine, of course, has hung in there commercially over the last three months (it’s up to $57-something million domestic) and is now even more broadly regarded as one of the year’s absolute finest. Because, I believe, it’s not a hah-hah comedy as much as a down-to-the-marrow family drama with horse laughs, and because of the quality of the humor. It feels so cleverly configured and well-blended that it doesn’t feel like anyone configured or blended anything.
The lion’s share of the credit for this belongs to three people — screenwriter Michael Arndt and directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. I’ve made no secret over the last nine months about being an Arndt fan for reasons that have nothing to do with our having swapped apartments during the summer of ’05. (I sweltered in Brooklyn while he worked with Dayton and Faris during the Sunshine shooting, which was all done within 50 miles of Los Angeles.)
Arndt has been living in San Francisco and working on a script for Pixar over the last year or so, but he was in town earlier this week and asked if we could talk. His agent has been riding him about sitting down with the right journalists to keep his Sunshine script in play for a Best Original Screenplay nomination. I think it more than speaks for itself but you have to play the game. We met last Tuesday night outside a Coffee Bean on Beverly and Robertson (it was just after the Oliver Stone/World Trade Center shebang at Morton’s) and talked for an hour.
Scene for scene, beat for beat, line for line, the Little Miss Sunshine screenplay is damn near perfect. In Arndt’s own view it deserved a grade of 88 before it was shot, and then the Dayton-Faris collaboration along with the inspired input of the cast kicked it up to a grade of 93 — a solid A. (Only scripts on the level of Some Like It Hot and Tootsie deserve grades in the high 90s, he feels.)
Arndt didn’t want me to take his picture so I didn’t. He feels that “writers should never have their picture taken for the same reason that models should never be interviewed.” But he’s got an appealing, interesting face — there’s a wariness in his eyes, but every now and then something joyful and delighted seeps in — so after some reflection I decided to run the above shot, which was taken at Park City’s Eccles theatre just after the Sunshine‘s debut showing. I’m presuming that he won’t be pissed.
To appreciate this recording you have to know Little Miss Sunshine pretty well, and you have to remember the actors (Abigail Breslin‘s Olive, Greg Kinnear‘s Richard, Paul Dano‘s Dwayne, Alan Arkin‘s grandpa, Toni Collette‘s Sheryl, Steve Carell‘s Frank) and all the stuff they go through.
If you haven’t seen Sunshine, it’s basically about two days or so in the life of the can’t-catch-a-break Hoover clan during a car trip from hell in which they’re taking little Olive to a Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in Redondo Beach.
It also helps to know that it took Arndt and Faris and Dayton about five years to get this film off the ground. Why I can’t imagine, but this anecdote in itself reminds me how blind and clueless mainstream Hollywood can often be. What if they’d given up? How many people with scripts as good as this one have grown weary and thrown in the towel after getting turned down for the 27th time?
The Beverly Blvd. traffic was awfully noisy during our talk (trucks, motorcyles, sirens) so I was surprised that our conversation came out as clearly as it did. It lasts about 30 or so minutes, and has some very good stuff on it — trust me.
88? 93? Whose grading scale are you talking about? Is there some screenplay rating commission that I haven’t heard about?
Seems to screenwriter Arndt’s private grading scale for screenplays.
I love that final shot out of the back window of the VW van, where Steve Carell, Toni Collette, and Paul Dano are push starting the old VW once again. They don’t look the least bit tired or discouraged anymore. In fact, they look a bit joyful, as if they are ready to keep pushing that VW van across the continent for the rest of their lives.
“America, I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.”
Comedy sure has changed. I found this one of the most despairing movies I’ve seen in ages. I didn’t even smile once, much less laugh, and neither did anyone else in the audience the night I saw it. Not saying it’s not a good film–just can’t understand why people think it’s so funny.
I found the pushing-the-van-scenes funny, and so did the urbanite, uber-sophisticated Chelsea audience I saw it with, but the rest of it got a mezzo-mezzo response.
The end scene (all-cast dance party) was abominable.
How about Kinnear’s line when he inquires of the pageant official where he might find a nearby funeral home? That’s one of the funniest moments I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. Did anybody else have much of a reaction to that?
NYC:
How do you feel about the end of Little Miss Sunshine? I’m getting vibes that you didn’t like it, but I haven’t picked up anything like that from you in any of the other 15 LMS talkbacks in the past 3 months. Consider that dead horse beaten.
I pretty much loved this movie, but I’ve been stunned by the number of fellow New Yorkers who’ve disparaged it. Most feel it’s at least seriously overrated and at worst a cloyling, obvious road movie. I loved the acting and the small touches and observations, and unlike NYCBusyBody I thought the ending was brilliant — the all-cast dance party was unnecessary, but that takes nothing away from the reveal of Olive’s routine, which is not only funny but is the sharpest bit of satire in the entire film. (Saith my wife, “It makes blunt — and rips apart — what all the other pageant people want to suggest.”)
Anyway, I bring up both sides of the argument to suggest that this could be one of those battleground films, like ‘Crash’ last year or ‘Sideways’ the year before (hated the former, loved the latter), where the blue-state coastal types fight amongst themselves. Usually it’s heartland, salt-of-the-earth types loving something the effete urban types hate or vice-versa, but for the last two years we’ve had Oscar contenders that NPR-listening, Times-reading, Kerry-voting folks have either loved or loathed. ‘LMS’ is this year’s model.
Jeff, that was a great listen. Lots of insight about changes from script to finished film, I always enjoy knowing little minutiae like that.
What I thought was interesting was how he revealed several things in his script that were definitely Hollywood, not cutting-edge (a mohawk? really?), and he fully gave credit to the directors for pushing him in different directions.
“It makes blunt — and rips apart — what all the other pageant people want to suggest.”
Chris:
Your wife is a smart cookie. Kudos.
I’ve tried to explain this concept about the ending to various people, to no avail. This is Grandpa’s version of all the other routines. Sexy dance moves? check. Skimpy outfit? check. Seductive glances? check. It’s just that the music is so on the nose, everyone freaks out.
And the whole family dancing isn’t about how hilarious it is that they are dancing lewdly, it’s about them coming together to defend one of their own. They might be freaks, but they’re a little BAND of freaks, fighting against… well, anyone who’s fighting against them.
LMS is 2006′s most overrated movie. It suffers–at almost every turn–from being indie movie cliched…it’s moderately funny but not in a ha-ha way, more like you’re smiling and then you chuckle. The bit with the family moving the body out of the hospital was painfully bad and while I though the ending was funny and the most inspired part of the whole thing, the movie is darker and more eccentric than people would lead you to believe. All of the performances were great, but again, all of the character were out of the indie-movie-maker handbook. There’s always one movie per year that everyone flips for that I just don’t get and this year LMS is that movie. 3 stars but nothing more.
Love this family movie. The Further Adventures of Olive anyone?
Olive’s routine at the end worked brilliantly for me. As soon as they showed the creepy made-up doll girls, I thought “Holy shit, these girls are being primed for future careers as strippers and nothing more.” Olive’s performance was like a wooden stake through the heart of the whole concept of child beauty pageants.
As for the movie itself, I thought it worked great as a comedy. I laughed a lot and so did the audience I saw it with. The dramatic elements felt a little tired and cliched but they were a fine vehicle for some good laughs.
most over-rated movie of the year.
Matty C. is on the nose about the group dance and its demonstration of unity.
At the beginning of the movie, the only thing that all these troubled characters have in common is their love for little Olive. Even her brother, who proclaims “I hate everybody,” never actually demonstrates any hostility to her. Though sometimes their love sends them in misguided directions, such as her father’s condescending warnings about ice cream, they all want to do their best to prevent her from succumbing to the same gloominess that currently engulfs each of them.
Also, when Olive does her dance, as risque and inappropriate it may be, she is still very much an innocent with no concept of sexuality; this is just a routine her grampa taught her. And in stark contrast to the hideous contestants who look like tiny adults, she looks like a little girl playing grown up, which mitigates any sense of horror. She may as well be Eve in Eden with no clue that she is naked. It is crucial that her family does not join her onstage until the uptight pageant director is just about to publicly catigate her and likely call her innocence into question. In unity, they take the bullet of shame on her behalf, so that her optimism can be shielded against the likely devastation the director’s tirade would do to it. A foolish gesture for a greater good.
So NYCBusybody hates liberals…but he lives in Chelsea, is surrounded by urban sophisticates, and uses phrases like ‘mezzo-mezzo’?
Sounds like something pathological is going on.
Dwayne’s haircut: Emo Philips, maybe?
http://www.steveallentheater.com/emo.html
The pushing the van scenes remind me of why I always prefer manuals over automatics.
“The bit with the family moving the body out of the hospital was painfully bad . . .”
Having dealt with two deaths in my immediate family in the past year and half, and also with the suicide of a friend of my brother’s, and having therefore dealt repeatedly with the whole death industry — hospitals, doctors, hospice nurses, funeral homes, churches, lawyers, and in the case of the suicide, the police — I found the whole stealing the body scene to be hilarious. In fact, it left me totally pumped.
My dealings with post-mortem officialdom were a lot smoother and more positive than the Kinnear character’s. But still, that scene gave vent to impulses I struggled with, but barely allowed myself to recognize.
In fact, in two of those three deaths, real fights broke out over the disposal of the body, although those fights mostly involved family members. In the case of the suicide, the decedent had an ugly and complicated family history, so it wasn’t immediately clear who would get to claim the body from the morgue.
As the suicide’s foster mother said to me of the deeply alcoholic and violently mentally ill biological mother, whom the police finally decided had legal control of the body: “She’s in her glory now, playing the bereaved mother.”
Fighting for control of a dead body by sliding it out a window doesn’t seem the slightest bit over the top to me any more.
I saw the movie with an audience in Iowa, though in a college town, so maybe they were a bunch of hipsters after all. Anyway, the Iowa audience as a whole liked the stealing the body scene. And they really like the final scene as well, including the big dance.
For my money, it was the best comedy of the summer. But yes, it’s DARK and not always a broad knee-slapper. And I agree, for the first half, at least, it was kinda depressing.
But I loved the ending, which debunks the whole “let’s have a Big Contest at the end of the movie which we win” beat which so many studio films favor.
What makes the ending, and the film overall, so satisfying, is showing the ultimate dysfunctional American family ,and finally, through the disappointment (and even death) brings them together as a family, stronger than ever.
Not for all tastes, maybe, but comedies usually aren’t.
And you can’t dispute the word-of-mouth and popularity of the film. Who would’ve thought it would do nearly $60 million?
Love this family movie. The Further Adventures of Olive anyone?
Olive’s routine at the end worked brilliantly for me. As soon as they showed the creepy made-up doll girls, I thought “Holy shit, these girls are being primed for future careers as strippers and nothing more.” Olive’s performance was like a wooden stake through the heart of the whole concept of child beauty pageants.
As for the movie itself, I thought it worked great as a comedy. I laughed a lot and so did the audience I saw it with. The dramatic elements felt a little tired and cliched but they were a fine vehicle for some good laughs.
Dwayne’s haircut: Emo Philips, maybe?
http://www.steveallentheater.com/emo.html
The screenplay for Sideways was “damn near perfect”. LMS was a moderately entertaining diversion, but I wouldn’t slurp the writing the way Jeff is here. I love me some Alan Arkin, but his Foul-Mouthed Old Person scenes felt quite forced. So did the Angsty Teenager, though Paul Dano’s excellent facial acting toned down what could have been a profoundly annoying part.
I would rank LMS along with David O. Russell’s “Spanking the Monkey” – not anything you would ever want to see again, but the glimmers of potential future greatness are present. I’ll definitely be interested to see what this team comes up with next.
If I’m using this grading scale, I give LMS a solid 80. Slightly above average. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it. There were weak spots, but the strong stuff mitigated that. LIke someone said before, the characters are all pretty much Dysfunctional Movie Family 101. The angsty teen who reads Nietsche…the smarmy self-help motivational speaker whose own life is falling apart…the foul-mouthed grandfather figure…precocious kid…gay suicidal English teacher…C’mon, these are practically archetypes. In terms of tone it’s half-way between Six Feet Under and Eulogy.
And the writer should really write a check to John Hughes. National Lampoon’s Vacation had many similar gags (dead grandparent still travelling with them, getting pulled over, car troubles), although LMS was less overtly wacky.
Having said all that though, the actors were having fun and it was contagious in that respect. Steve Carell and Toni Collete were fully living in their characters. And the soundtrack gave the film a nice, quirky energy. I’d watch it again.
Rats, erased Sun Morn Shootout with the directors, but alas, Sundance and Searchlight got this right; it’s the kind of R movie my mother would have taken me and my siblings to, and we wouldn’t care that, by cinephile standards, it’s all been done before.
nakedmanatee:
re: Dysfunctional Movie Family 101
I’m not going to say every one of these characters is new and original, but I will say you may have gone a little overboard in your broad generalizations. I mean, sure, if you describe everyone in 3 words, I’m sure you yourself would be an archetype as well. I would be Recent College Grad Waiting Tables and Trying to Figure out What to do With His Life. How cliche. But that’s my life.
Yes, Paul Dano is an “angsty teen who reads Nietsche”, but he’s got a lot going on. The not speaking, the (spoiler alert) colorblind thing. Plus, he serves as our viewpoint into all the dysfunction.
Foul mouthed old person? Yes, that’s been done. However, it’s usually done just to have said old person say “homo” or some other politically incorrect thing that we’re supposed fo find “scandalous”. Here, it feels like he’s a real guy, and plus, most foul mouthed old person characters don’t use heroin.
Also, when exactly did “gay suicidal English teacher” become “practically (an) archetype”?
As far as stealing from “Vacation”, having car troubles and getting pulled over are staples of any road trip, and therefore any road trip movie. For example, “Road Trip”.
Not trying to defend every facet of the movie, but let’s not exaggerate.
Rats, erased Sun Morn Shootout with the directors, but alas, Sundance and Searchlight got this right; it’s the kind of R movie my mother would have taken me and my siblings to, and we wouldn’t care that, by cinephile standards, it’s all been done before.
LMS may be overrated, if people are rating it a classic. It was a little too precious and a little too quirky (the “indie cliche’s” people speak of) at certain points but what made it good was how incredibly sad it was. It was a lot more sad and drab than it was funny but I thought that was the point. In fact, the sadness is what made it gopefull and ultimately made it work. The guy who played the mute son was great, best part of the movie. If they ever do a HATE! movie he should play Buddy Bradley, but I’m guessing that’ll never happen.