Little Miss Sunshine (2006) - Dayton/Faris' debut is a sunny, tragicomic crowd-pleaser

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+ Best Independent Movie of the Year + Best Road Movie of the Year

The sparse, sunny, wonderful poster for Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' Little Miss Sunshine

A family decide to encourage and embrace their young daughter in her wish to compete in a beauty pageant in another part of the country and so hit the road with that purpose in their yellow VWT2 minibus.

Little Miss Sunshine is the debut for husband-and-wife director team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Battle of the Sexes (2017)), who had made mainly prominent music videos for more than 20 years prior to it. The script is by Michael Arndt (Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)).
It is a really sweet little movie about being a family and about life. It is driven by the well-written and well-played characters in it. Of the fine performances, Greg Kinnear (The Matador (2005)) as the father of the family, who believes in a future for himself as a life coach who pushes a philosophy of nine steps for winners; Steve Carell (Puppy (2013), short) as the fired, suicidal gay uncle and Alan Arkin (Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)) as the heroin-loving grandfather are especially good.
Arndt's fairly surprising plot is also a major reason why Little Miss Sunshine is such a lovely film.

Related posts:

Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris: Ruby Sparks (2012) - Dayton & Farris' high concept romcom failure

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 8 mil. $
Box office: 100.5 mil. $
= Mega-hit (returned 12.56 times the cost)
[Little Miss Sunshine premiered 20 January (Sundance Film Festival, Colorado) and runs 101 minutes. Arndt's first draft was finished in 2000. He sold the script, his first, for 250k $, and a lengthy development began. Shooting took place in Arizona, including Phoenix, and in California, including Los Angeles, from June - July 2005. Due to the long shoots inside the VW, which didn't have airbags, often while it was driving, Kinnear has described the production as "the most dangerous movie I've ever made." The competitive pageant element was inspired by an Arnold Schwarzenegger quote about hating losers. The pageant scenes were shot in 2 weeks and employed actual pageant girls and their families, mostly in their own pageant outfits. The Sundance premiere was so successful that the film's domestic distribution rights were sold for a record 10.5 mil. $ + 10 % of the gross revenue to Fox Searchlight Pictures. The film opened #20 to an incredible 370k $ first weekend in North America, where it held the highest per-theater gross across the US for 21 straight days. It peaked at #3, behind new release Invincible and fellow holdover hit Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby, spent another, subsequent week in the top 5 (#4), and in 1,602 cinemas, playing a long 35 weeks and grossing 59.8 mil. $ (59.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 8.4 mil. $ (8.4 %) and the UK with 6.4 mil. $ (6.4 %). The film was nominated for 4 Oscars: It won for Best Supporting Actor (Arkin) and Best Original Screenplay and lost Best Supporting Actress (Abigail Breslin (Signs (2002))) to Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls and Best Picture to The Departed. It was also nominated for 2 Golden Globes, won 2/6 BAFTA nominations, an AFI award, a César award, a nomination for a David di Donatello award, won 4/5 Independent Spirit awards, was nominated for 2 Grammys, won a National Board of Review award and many other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch better than this one. The film was also a major moneymaker in the home video market: In the North American market alone, it earned in excess of 55.5 mil. $ in sales and another 46.3 mil. $ in rentals. It has since been adapted into a stage musical. Dayton/Faris returned with Ruby Sparks (2012)). Kinnear returned in Fast Food Nation (2006); Carell with a voice performance in Over the Hedge (2006) and in the flesh in Evan Almighty (2007); Arkin in Firewall (2006). Little Miss Sunshine is certified fresh at 91 % with a 7.7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Little Miss Sunshine?

Ruby Sparks (2012) - Dayton & Farris' high concept romcom failure

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An effective, well-made poster for Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Farris' Ruby Sparks

 

A successful, lonely writer with writer's block completes an assignment for his shrink and in doing so creates the fictional female character of his  dreams in reality!

Ruby Sparks has its moderately funny patches, but this basically high-concept romcom has perched itself wrong; on the low-budget-quirky-indie chair, - replete with discordant, foreign language music and an eccentric parent couple, - instead of a higher chair, the mainstream approach. It is also problematic that the protagonist's writing issues take up as much space in the film as they do. It is fundamentally hard to get genuinely interested in this character, the central rock of Ruby Sparks, and the affluent Los Angeles milieu he resides in. To make matters worse, the film isn't romantic, because the titular character isn't a real person in the film but only a figment of the writer's imagination.

Paul Dano (L.I.E. (2001)) attempts to pull up the funny factor but spends the majority of the film looking like an owl. Zoe Kazan (Meek's Cutoff (2010)), who also wrote the film, her first and only movie writing job to date, is sweet enough as Ruby Sparks, but the film is regrettably failed. It is directed by great Californian directors and marrieds Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Farris (Little Miss Sunshine (2006)).

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Estimated 8 mil. $

Box office: 9.1 mil. $

= Big flop

[Ruby Sparks was released July 25 and runs 104 minutes. Filming took place in LA and Big Sur, California from July - August 2011. The film opened #28 to a 140k $ opening weekend in 13 theaters, expanding to 261 and #17, grossing 2.5 mil. $ (27.5 % of the total gross) in North America. Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Australia with 1.6 mil. $ (17.6 %) and the UK with 1.2 mil. $ (13.2 %). Ruby Sparks is certified fresh at 79 % with a 7.1 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Ruby Sparks?