Writing with Heart: A Little Miss Sunshine Analysis
The motivational story of Michael Arndt’s rise in Hollywood is one of those tales that makes every aspiring screenwriter feel like they can make it. He was born in McLean, Virginia, graduated from Tisch School of Arts at NYU, got a job as a script reader at a small production company, and went on to become Matthew Broderick’s personal assistant–just to quit it all to put the entirety of his time and effort into writing a story from his heart that he felt the world needed to hear: Little Miss Sunshine.
Although he famously finished the first draft of the script in just 3 days, he spent the remainder of the year revising it to perfection, racking up an estimated 100 different drafts. He originally planned on making the film himself on a micro-budget, but then, just like every aspiring writer dreams of happening to them, Hollywood came knocking.
Michael Arndt at the 2007 Academy Awards
The script found itself landing in the laps of some agents at Endeavor, who passed it onto directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and the rest is history. The script sold for $250,000, the film became a commercial and critical success, and Arndt wound up taking home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Today, he is one of the most commercially successful screenplay writers in the industry, having written various installments for the Toy Story, Hunger Games, and Star Wars franchises.
So, all this begs the question: What made Little Miss Sunshine so special? How did one unknown writer’s indie drama script end up being so captivating that it ultimately changed the course of film history? Well, the answer is simple: when you write a story from the heart, with full sincerity and honesty that comes through in each and every one of its characters, people are going to care.
OPENING IMAGE
The film opens with a shot of Olive, an adorably dorky 6-year-old girl, as she intensely watches a rerun of an old Miss America Pageant on her living room TV. The announcers declare a winner, and the newly crowned Miss America bursts into tears before hugging all the runner-ups. Suddenly, the TV pauses, and Olive is shown mimicking her reaction in her living room. She rewinds the tape, watches it again, and does the whole thing over. In just 30 seconds, the audience is introduced to Olive, has already fallen in love with her, and understands exactly what she strives to be.
SET UP
As the film’s opening continues, we are introduced one by one to the rest of Olive’s lovable yet dysfunctional family. Her father, Richard (a motivational speaker), gives a presentation about what it takes to be a winner in front of an ironically small audience.
Olive’s mother, Sheryl (the stress-filled leader of the family), arrives at a hospital to pick up her older brother, Frank, who had just attempted to commit suicide.
Next, we meet Olive’s grandfather (and her number one fan), who locks himself in a bathroom to snort heroin while the house is mostly empty.
Finally, we are introduced to Olive’s older brother, Dwayne (a highly disciplined teenage boy), as he does rigorous exercises to prepare for some form of military enlistment.
As you can already see, each of these characters represents a different conflict of the human condition. Olive represents our desire to dream, Richard represents our drive for success, Sheryl represents our responsibility to take care of others, Frank represents our burden of never being enough, Grandpa represents our fall for temptations, and Dwayne represents our struggle with discipline. Every single human being on Earth has struggled with one of these conflicts at least once in their life, and the writer masterfully personifies them into each of these characters. And by the end of the film, each of these characters faces their conflict head-on and comes to terms with it (one way or another).
INCITING INCIDENT
The film continues with the entire family converging in the house for dinner. Sheryl and Frank arrive home carrying food and Frank’s bags (which nobody bothers to help them with), Olive is rehearsing a dance with Grandpa (her pageant coach), Richard is nowhere to be seen, and Dwayne is silently reading philosophical literature in his room.
Sheryl and Frank continue down the hall into Dwayne’s room where Frank is going to be sleeping (the doctors insisted upon him never being alone), which frustrates both Dwayne and Frank.
Richard suddenly appears from the kitchen, immediately asking Sheryl if someone named Stan Grossman called (referring to a prosperous business deal, most likely). He checks the phone for messages from Stan, but instead hears a message regarding Olive’s placement in the regional Little Miss Sunshine pageant.
Richard ends the message early so that he can try to get in touch with Stan (he fails), and the family sits down for dinner.
At dinner, Frank starts asking Dwayne about his personal life, to which Dwayne replies by writing on a pad and paper.
Frank finally cracks and asks why he isn’t talking. Sheryl explains that Dwayne has set a goal for himself to get into the Naval Academy to become a fighter pilot, and he’s taken a vow of silence until he achieves this. Naturally, Frank finds this odd, but rolls with it.
As the dinner continues, we slowly begin to learn more about our characters. Grandpa is revealed to be currently living with the family because he was kicked out of his retirement home (most likely for his aggressive personality and heroin use). Then, when Olive asks Frank about the wounds on his wrist, we discover that Frank is gay, was a well-respected professor, and attempted suicide after falling in love with one of his students (who left him for Larry Sugarman, a competing scholar in his field).
Finally, the conversation steers back to the topic of Olive’s participation in beauty pageants, which reminds Richard about the message on the answering machine…
Through means of disqualification, Olive has now been declared the winner of the regional contest, qualifying her for the state Little Miss Sunshine competition, which just so happens to be taking place in California that Sunday.
DEBATE
Chaos immediately erupts in the household. Olive has already begun packing her bags and screaming in excitement, but nobody else has any idea of what to do. Sheryl had already promised Olive that she could compete had she qualified, but as Richard pessimistically points out, there just doesn’t seem to be any way to make it work.
Finally, Richard submits and says that he’ll take everyone cross country in their VW Bus, but it’ll only work as long as Dwayne is willing to join them.
And that settles that: the family’s going on a road trip.
BREAK INTO TWO
Act 2 begins with the family already at each other’s throats. In the first stretch of the drive alone, Grandpa has called Frank several slurs, given Dwayne some inappropriate sexual advice, and screamed at Richard to go f**k himself. It’s clearly going to be a long couple of days.
Still, however crude and offensive Grandpa may be in this scene, Arndt did an excellent job of providing a meaningful subtext behind his intentions. Even though he calls Frank various homophobic slurs, he never actually judges him for being gay. Even though his advice to Dwayne may be inappropriate for someone his age, he’s saying it because he wants to help his grandson during his pivotal teenage years. And even when he tells Richard to go f**k himself, it’s not because he hates him, he just wants everybody in the car to be free to speak their mind. The Grandpa character, just like any given member of your own family, is crude and dislikable–yet you just can’t help but love him. This is what the script is all about. People are flawed and imperfect, but that’s what makes them human. And if you want to have any kind of relationship with another person, you gotta focus on the good.
FUN AND GAMES
As the trip goes on, the stress keeps on piling up. Every time they pull over for gas, Richard anxiously tries to get in touch with Stan Grossman regarding their business deal. And every time, Stan doesn’t answer. To make things worse, after one particular pitstop, the clutch on the van just stops working completely.
They take it in to a nearby mechanic, who basically tells them they’re shit-out-of-luck as far as replacement parts go. He does, however, present them with an alternative:
CUT TO: The entire family hastily pushes behind the van in an attempt to get it to 20 miles per hour, jumping into the car one by one as they do (an iconic image that many have come to remember the film by). The road trip goes on.
In the middle of the next stretch of driving, just after Richard finishes lecturing Frank on how much of a loser he is, he finally gets a call back from Stan Grossman. He desperately goes to answer it, but loses cell service and has to hastily pull over to use a payphone.
During this next rest stop, everybody decides to take some time to themselves. Olive runs off to play in the parking lot, Dwayne gets out to do some pushups, Richard goes to the payphone to call Stan back, and Frank goes into the gas station to buy some pornographic magazines for Grandpa.
As Frank purchases a large collection of porn for Grandpa (and a slushie for himself) somebody inside the store recognizes him and calls his name. Frank turns around to see none other than the student who ruined his life.
At the same time as Frank is being humiliated inside the store, Richard is being humiliated outside the store. His call with Stan goes horrible, and the deal is off. Grandpa and Dwayne watch in disappointment from the car.
The family defeatedly ends their night at a sleazy motel in Arizona. Olive and Grandpa are in one room, Dwayne and Frank are in another, and Sheryl and Richard are in the last one.
In Olive and Grandpa’s room, Olive opens up about her fears regarding the Little Miss Sunshine pageant.
In Frank and Dwayne’s room, things are much quieter. Frank lies in bed, solemnly studying a photo of him and the student who broke his heart. Dwayne, on the other hand, attempts to sleep while the sound of his parents arguing next door creeps through the walls.
In Richard and Sheryl’s room, we find them lying down, emotionally exhausted just after their argument concluded. Richard sits up at the end of his bed, unable to sleep. Finally, he snaps.
Desperate to prove to his family (and himself) that he isn’t a loser, Richard rides one of the mopeds dozens of miles down the highway until he reaches the hotel where Stan Grossman is staying. There, at the hotel bar, he finds him.
And that’s it. Everything Richard has been hoping for the entirety of the film is now gone, so all he can do is ride his rented moped 30 miles back to the motel, where he’s staying with maybe one of the most dysfunctional groups of people put on film.
MIDPOINT
The midpoint of the film finds all of our characters at an all-time low (or so they think) the night before the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, and they still have 200 more miles to go…
Frank (who, don’t forget, attempted to kill himself days earlier) lived through the nightmare scenario of running into the student who cheated on him AND the person he cheated with (Larry Sugarman, remember?). Larry Sugarman not only holds power over Frank through his relationship with the student, but also because he’s the only person on Earth more awarded than him in his field. Perhaps the two parts of Frank’s life that he cherished most (his career and his boyfriend) were both destroyed by the same man, and now he’s forced to sleep with these thoughts.
Sheryl, the glue of the family, has finally reached her breaking point and is considering divorce with Richard (this scene didn’t make the final cut of the film, but I’m including it anyway because it does give some perspective on her character’s emotional state during the second half of the movie). She knows that every single member of the family is counting on her to keep them together, especially Olive, so she’s doing everything she can to stay strong until after the pageant is over.
Richard is perhaps in the worst shape of everyone. He’s spent the first half of the film being a self-righteous asshole who prioritizes success over everything else, just for this mentality to literally amount to nothing as the deal with Stan fell through. Now, with divorce and bankruptcy inching closer, he’s forced to come to terms with the fact that he may not be the winner he advertises himself to be.
Dwayne still hates everyone and would prefer to go home, but with his Mom holding flight school lessons above his head, he has no choice but to endure the final days of this horrid trip. His parents’ marital problems are visibly getting to him, but everything his disciplinary literature has taught him encourages him to fight through. At least with his vow of silence, he doesn’t have to talk to anybody.
Olive and Grandpa may be the only people in the group who have any semblance of hope left. After their emotional moment earlier, they both are feeling confident and excited for the next day to begin. They rehearse Olive’s moves a couple more times, tell each other they love them, and go to sleep happily.
BAD TO WORSE
While this script is masterful in multiple senses, perhaps the most impressive part is Arndt’s ability to make bad worse. Since the very first page, where we are first introduced to this medley of dysfunctional, troubled characters, the thought starts appearing in our minds: “How can this possibly get any worse?”. And every time it does get worse, we think it again. This process repeats over, and over, and over. And every time one of these complicating events occurs, it’s right at the worst possible time with something that we didn’t see coming. They proceed to get more and more inconvenient, more unexpected, and even more hilarious as the story continues. The second half is riddled with these scenarios, and it all begins with some horrible news from Olive:
The film jumps to a hospital waiting room where the distressed family anxiously waits for the news. Olive tries to cheer everyone up by giving them some eye tests she found, but is interrupted when Sheryl calls a family meeting.
This is a pivotal part of the film for many reasons. Obviously, we’re about to lose one of our main characters, which changes the course of the rest of the plot. Grandpa was Olive’s pageant coach and her biggest fan (nobody else in the family has ever even seen her perform before), so him not being there means that Olive won’t have anyone to recognize her progress. She will just be competing straight-up like everyone else.
Additionally, Grandpa’s emergency starts to bring out the humanity in all of the characters. Dwayne, who claims to hate everyone, shows that he does actually care about his family, especially his mom and sister. Frank, who wanted to kill himself days earlier, is witnessing the weight that a death brings on your loved ones. And Richard, so laser-focused on prestige and success, is forced to acknowledge the more important things in life. As cheesy as all this sounds, the writer does an excellent job of depicting these character shifts naturally and subtly.
Then, the news becomes official. A doctor comes out and tells them that there was nothing that could be done to save Grandpa. The family gets about 6 seconds to grieve before a hospital administrator enters the room to help them get started on handling the body. Richard asks if there’s any way they can leave the body there and come back later, as they have to make it to California by 3 o’clock for the pageant.
The family solemnly enters the hospital room where Grandpa’s body is. Everyone is finally ready to accept the fact that they are not going to be able to attend the pageant this year…except Richard.
One way another, they’re getting to the pageant. The family scatters about the hospital to execute their heist of Grandpa’s body. Dwayne and Frank go outside to pull the body from the window, Sheryl and Richard help lower the body down, and Olive keeps watch. They successfully get the body down, run with it through the parking lot, throw it in the trunk, and take off back onto the highway. The trip continues.
They have one hour to drive 60 more miles. It’s going to be close. Richard hastily speeds down the highway, doing everything he can to get there on time. Suddenly, a car cuts him off. Richard honks his horn, but for some reason the honking won’t stop. His horn’s stuck; now blaring obnoxiously and continuously during the last leg of their journey. They don’t have time to fix it and decide to just keep driving, no matter how annoying it is. It’s not that bad, right?
Wrong. Sirens appear behind them. Holy shit, they’re getting pulled over. In a race against time, with a body in the trunk, this is the worst possible thing that can be happening (or so we think). The traffic stop goes horribly, and Richard has to exit the vehicle. Then, when the Officer notices Richard glance towards the back of the car nervously, he asks to take a look in the trunk.
What a close call. Saved by Grandpa’s porn! Now they can peacefully drive the rest of the way and get Olive to the pageant on time, right? Nope. Wrong, again. During the last 30 or so minutes of the drive, Olive playfully conducts vision tests on Dwayne using the flyers she got from the hospital.
One of the most unfortunate facts of life is that sometimes, no matter how disciplined you are or how hard you work, things just aren’t going to work out. Dwayne, who had been so set on his goals that he hasn’t spoken a word in nine months, is completely shattered by the new information that he may be colorblind. Everything he’s done, everything he’s sacrificed, gone in an instant.
Richard finally pulls the car over.
Still, after all of this, the family is still desperate to get to the pageant. Sheryl tries to convince him to get back into the car.
Considering whether or not to just leave Dwayne on the side of the road, Olive suddenly walks over to him on her own.
This is perhaps my favorite moment in the film. Even though Dwayne just cursed out his entire family for their flaws, he’s now been hit with the reality check that sometimes all you have in life is your family. Dreams can be taken away from you in an instant. People can be taken away from you in an instant. And without saying a word, Olive reminds him of all of this. Olive is perhaps the only one Dwayne ever had any real affection for. He knows none of this is her fault. He knows that she’s been raised by the same crazy people as him. And he knows that by staying here on the side of the road, he’s going to mess up her chances of competing. Just because his dreams are ruined doesn’t mean he has to ruin hers. The love is real, even if it hasn’t been shown much before. He gets back in the car and they go to the pageant.
BREAK INTO THREE
Now with all of the obstacles actually out of the way (except for a minor hiccup during sign-ins), Olive has made it to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant and is ready to compete. The hotel it’s being held at is chaotic; nothing this family has ever seen before. Dozens of spray-tanned little girls with giant blonde hair fill the building. Olive is clearly out of place.
FINALE
While Sheryl helps Olive get prepared for the upcoming contest, everyone else splits up. Richard has some people from a local funeral home meet him at the car to pick up Grandpa’s body. Dwayne and Frank, unable to withstand the horrorid environment of a little girl’s beauty pageant, decide to go to the beach until it’s Olive’s turn to go on.
When Richard finishes dealing with Grandpa, he returns to the pageant to watch the show alone, with no idea of what to expect. The person sitting next to him is a large biker dad wearing earplugs – not a great sign. As the talent competition begins, Richard realizes this place may be cursed.
On the beach, Frank and Dwayne have an intimate heart-to-heart.
All at once, Dwayne, Frank, and Richard rush over to Sheryl to try to convince her to stop Olive from competing.
And with that, Olive goes on. There’s nothing the family can do now but watch. Olive uncomfortably walks out onto the stage, not sure of what to do up there, but then the music for her dance routine starts playing…
In the script, the music is supposed to be “Peach”, by Prince, but for the actual film the directors upped the ante by making it “Super Freak” by Rick James. Either way, this is nothing anybody expected. Olive proceeds to perform a series of raunchy, stripper-influenced moves choreographed by her Grandpa–much to the horror of the judges and audience.
But the family knows that Olive doesn’t care about those people, she’s doing this for HER. So, in an act of support, they all stand up and start cheering her on.
The MC of the pageant runs onstage to try to stop the controversial performance, which leads to Richard storming the stage to try to stop him from intervening. Olive just keeps dancing as all of this occurs.
The Pageant Official tells Richard that if she doesn’t get off the stage, Olive will be disqualified. Richard hesitantly agrees and slowly approaches Olive to try to stop her, but then he changes his mind…
Then, out of nowhere, the rest of the family joins in too. Everyone’s now on stage, dancing and having the time of their lives like they’re the only people in the room. Suddenly, the music cuts off.
CUT TO: The family sits in the security room of the hotel, handcuffed together, while a cop stands over them. He tells them the charges will be dropped if they agree to never enter Olive into another pageant in the state ever again. Ever. They agree.
CLOSING IMAGE
The family returns to the van, pushes it to 20 mph, hops in one by one, and begins their long journey back home as entirely new people.
WHY IT’S EXCELLENT
This screenplay is excellent because it sincerely touches on so many of the natural flaws we have as human beings and embeds them within a touching story conating relatable characters that we can root for. As I mentioned before, no matter how dysfunctional or horrible some of these people may seem, you can’t help but love them. Which is why it must be reminded that for a story to truly be as captivating as this one, it has to come from the heart. No matter what the most recent trend is within the film industry, people still want to experience a story that they can relate to in one way or another. And while not everyone can relate to being a pageant contestant or motivational speaker, they can relate to such themes as drug abuse, depression, family drama, striving for success, overcoming failure, disciplinary challenges, and just wanting to be accepted for who you are. Because all of these things are what makes us human, whether we like it or not.
