Little Miss Sunshine

Toni Collette, Alan Arkin and Abigail Breslin star in this comedy drama which follows a dysfunctional family on a frantic road trip across America in a decrepit Volkswagen van to deliver their daughter to a child beauty pageant on time. Olive Hoover (Breslin) is an ordinary girl who dreams of winning the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. Her heroin-snorting grandfather Edwin (Arkin) offers her some rather unorthodox coaching while her mother Sheryl (Collette) and father Richard (Greg Kinnear) are fighting because Richard's new self-help business is not going well. Meanwhile, Olive's older brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) has taken a vow of silence and her suicidal uncle Frank (Steve Carell) is living with them while he recovers. Since Dwayne and Frank cannot be left alone, everyone has to come on the 800-mile road trip from New Mexico to California for the pageant and they must contend with numerous personal setbacks and mechanical problems along the way. Will the experience finally bring them together or will it tear them apart forever?