Analysis Of Little Miss Sunshine

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The film Little Miss Sunshine follows a family on their road trip from New Mexico to California. The shows the lives of a dysfunctional lower middle-class family. The protagonist Olive gets accepted to compete in a beauty pageant in California. Her family consisting of her Mother Sheryl, Father Richard, Silent Brother Dwayne, Suicidal Uncle Frank and drug addict Grandfather all take the trip with her in a beat down Volkswagen bus. The film goes into depth about different problems ordinary people may face on a day to day basis and the way that they handle these issues. Dwayne, Richard, Frank, and Olive all are trying to overcome totally different problems throughout the film and are resolving them in very similar ways. Even though these four …show more content…
Throughout most of the first half of the film, he doesn’t speak. He has taken a vow of silence until he becomes a pilot in the military. Even with this character’s silence, he is still connecting with the audience through his teenage angst. About half way through the film and while still on the character’s road trip, Dwayne’s sister Olive gives everyone a colorblind test, from some random pamphlet she had. He fails the test, and writes down on his little notepad (his means of communication), “What” and holds it up to his uncle Frank. His uncle Frank who is also on the road trip, who witnessed the whole test lets Dwayne know he is colorblind and will never be able to become a military pilot because of this. This was definitely the biggest twist in the movie. Dwayne starts to panic and the family pulls the van over. Dwayne runs out to the side of the road crying and screaming the word, “fuck.” The family tries to get him to come back into the van but it really looks like he is not going to move and that the family may have to just leave him there. Finally, his sister Olive walks over to him and kneels next to him she puts her arm around him and rests her head on his shoulder. There is a moment of silence, and eventually, Dwayne says, “Okay let’s go.” As you can see, Dwayne experiences his moment of grace once his sister Olive comes to comfort him. He realizes that he …show more content…
The whole goal of the film was to get Olive to the beauty pageant. Once she gets there it is very obvious that the is not beauty pageant material and is given the option to stop competing. She decides to go on and does this striper like routine to the song Super Freak. At first, it just looks like she is humiliating herself and it is apparent to Olive as well as Olive’s family. That is when Richard decides to jump on stage with Olive and dance along, the whole family eventually joins Richard and Olive in the dancing. They are eventually escorted out by police and the scene cuts to them sitting in a Jail. Here is when Olive really has her moment of grace. She realizes that everything will be okay because she will always have her

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