Little Miss Sunshine is a 2006 American tragicomedy[2] road film directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (in their directorial debut) from a screenplay written by Michael Arndt.

Dwayne, Sheryl's Nietzsche-reading teenage son from a previous marriage, has taken a vow of silence until he accomplishes his dream of becoming a fighter pilot.

When the van breaks down early on, the family learns that they must push it until it is moving at about 20 mph (32 km/h) before it is put into gear, at which point they have to run up to the side door and jump in.

When the grief counselor refuses to let the family leave his corpse at the hospital while they go to the pageant and return later, they smuggle it into the van, almost getting caught by the police.

As the pageant begins, Richard and Dwayne realize that the other contestants are slim, sexualized pre-teen girls who perform elaborate dance numbers with great panache.

The hitherto-unseen dance routine Edwin had taught Olive is revealed to be a striptease performed to the Rocasound remix of Rick James' "Super Freak".

Piling into the van with the horn still honking, they happily smash through the barrier of the hotel's toll booth and begin their trip back home to Albuquerque.

Paul Dano was cast as Dwayne two years before production began and in preparation for portraying his character, spent a few days taking his own vow of silence.

[7] The role of Frank, the suicidal Proust scholar, was originally written for Bill Murray, and there was also studio pressure for Robin Williams.

"[6] Although known to Comedy Central viewers for many years as a correspondent on the highly rated satirical news program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, at the time Carell was cast for Little Miss Sunshine, he was relatively unknown in Hollywood.

[10] The script was written by Michael Arndt and was originally about an East Coast road trip from Maryland to Florida, but was shifted to a journey from New Mexico to California because of budget issues.

[13] Instead, he gave the screenplay to producers Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger who teamed up with Deep River Productions to find a potential director.

[8] After the studio attempted to have the film be centered on the character Richard Hoover, and Arndt disagreed, he was fired and replaced by another writer.

[18] A corporate change brought in a new studio head and Arndt was rehired when the new writer left after four weeks of rewriting the script.

[22] The film was dedicated to Rebecca Annitto, the niece of producer Peter Saraf and an extra in scenes set in the diner and the convenience store, who was killed in a car accident on September 14, 2005.

[24] During pre-production, the cinematographer used a basic video camera and set it up at angles inside the van to determine the best locations to shoot from during filming.

[19][26][27] In an interview, actor Greg Kinnear jokingly described how the scenes were filmed when he was driving: "I was going like 50 miles an hour [80 km/h] in this '71 VW van that doesn't have side airbags.

[28][29] On July 25, 2006, Fox Searchlight Pictures invited VW bus owners to a screening at Vineland Drive-In theater in Industry, California.

[30] Prior to writing the script, Arndt read in a newspaper about Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking to a group of high school students and saying "If there's one thing in this world I hate, it's losers.

"[33] When Focus Features initially wanted to film in Canada, the directors opposed it, believing the costs of flying all of the pageant girls and their families would be excessive.

Directors Dayton and Faris were introduced to DeVotchKa's music after hearing the song "You Love Me" on Los Angeles' KCRW radio station.

The Little Miss Sunshine score was not eligible for Academy Award consideration due to the percentage of material derived from already written DeVotchKa songs.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Little Miss Sunshine succeeds thanks to a strong ensemble cast that includes Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, and Abigail Breslin, as well as a delightfully funny script.

[61] Michael Medved gave Little Miss Sunshine four out of four, saying that "... this startling and irresistible dark comedy counts as one of the very best films of the year ..." and that directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the movie itself, and actors Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin, and Steve Carell deserved Oscar nominations.

"[65] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly labeled the film with a 'C' rating, calling the characters "walking, talking catalogs of screenwriter index-card data".

[66] Jim Ridley of The Village Voice called the movie a "rickety vehicle that travels mostly downhill" and a "Sundance clunker".

[67] Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail criticized the film, stating "Though Little Miss Sunshine is consistently contrived in its characters' too-cute misery, the conclusion, which is genuinely outrageous and uplifting, is almost worth the hype.

[70] Roger Ebert reflected on the film's themes, writing "Little Miss Sunshine shows us a world in which there's a form, a brochure, a procedure, a job title, a diet, a step-by-step program, a career path, a prize, a retirement community, to quantify, sort, categorize and process every human emotion or desire.

'"[71] Brian Tallerico of UGO.com also focused on the film's themes: "Little Miss Sunshine teaches us to embrace that middle ground, acknowledging that life may just be a beauty pageant, where we're often going to be outdone by someone prettier, smarter, or just plain luckier, but if we get up on that stage and be ourselves, everything will turn out fine.

[93] The cast features Hunter Foster, Malcolm Gets, Georgi James, Dick Latessa, Jennifer Laura Thompson, and Taylor Trensch.