Sightlines · how to watch
How to watch Little Miss Sunshine
2006 · Valerie Faris · Little Miss Sunshine on Sightlines
5 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 4 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.
On a first viewing
Count how many times the family push-starts the yellow bus. (staging)
The broken clutch forces all six Hoovers out onto the asphalt, running, shoving, leaping in. Dayton and Faris stage it as physical comedy and then keep restaging it.
Payoff: The running gag is the film's whole argument in one gesture: people who cannot make the world obey, going anyway. In the reading: cinema of the body. The reading calls this cinema of the body: meaning carried by what bodies do, not by what anyone says.
Notice how often Suhrstedt keeps all six Hoovers inside one frame. (camera)
Inside the van and out, the camera composes for the group rather than cutting to single faces. Bodies pack into tight, comic arrangements with nobody given private space.
Payoff: Holding the family in one shot keeps their collective dysfunction visible instead of splitting it into separate problems.
Listen for the accordion and strings entering on the highway stretches. (sound)
DeVotchKa's Eastern-European sound, braided with Mychael Danna's score, lifts the road sequences into something wistful. Then the music drops out for the silences of a household that has stopped talking.
Payoff: The score tells you the trip is sad before any character admits it, which is why the jokes keep landing sideways.
Watch Paul Dano's Dwayne communicate without speaking. (performance)
Dwayne's vow of silence means notepads, glares, and posture. Dano plays a full character in gesture while Kinnear, Collette, Carell and Arkin talk over each other around him.
Payoff: His silence makes you read bodies instead of lines.
Look at Richard's motivational posters, diners, and pageant surfaces. (setting)
The Nine Steps world, the antiseptic roadside interiors, and the spray-tanned pageant all gleam. The Hoovers and their dying bus look shabby by comparison in every scene.
Payoff: The production design stacks the family's worn authenticity against the glossy surfaces of American success culture. In the reading: consciousness of clichés. The reading calls these dead images clichés, and the film moves through them knowing exactly how hollow they are.
The 4 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".
Carry this in: Watch the push-starts. Count how the family arrives, runs, and piles in together.