Bringing Us a Little (Miss) Sunshine
Ah, how I love Monday nights. Every week, I drive twenty minutes to get to Irish dance class, and during that twenty minutes, I almost always hear something interesting on NPR’s program “Fresh Air.” That’s not to say that host Terry Gross doesn’t irritate me, because she does. She just has one of those “public radio” voices . . . and her questions and tone sometimes seem condescending (I noticed that her slang and use of “like” increased exponentially when she interviewed rapper André Benjamin of OutKast, as opposed to when she interviews a white historian—really, Terry, I’m pretty sure that André Benjamin understands multi-syllabic words). But her guests are great.
Last night’s “Fresh Air” was an interview with Little Miss Sunshine’s writer (Michael Arndt) and co-directors (husband-and-wife team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris). There were enough interesting tidbits to keep my mind off the below-zero weather and instead thinking about “Sunshine.”
You can listen to the whole thirty-minute program on NPR’s web site, but if you’re pressed for time, here’s some interesting Little Miss Sunshine trivia:
- Michael Arndt has two brothers who are academics, and one of them is even a Proust scholar, like Frank (Steve Carell). Arndt didn’t say whether his brother is the nation’s preeminent Proust scholar. He did, however, share his opinion that academia is “an inherently amusing place” because of its distance from the real world: the fights are so bitter because the stakes are so low. Sounds ‘bout right.
- Arndt decided that Frank would be a scholar specifically of Proust when, in a telephone conversation, his brother mentioned Proust’s comment about the happy years of one’s life being the wasted years, that the valuable years are really the miserable ones. Arndt wanted to use the quote in his script, and he figured that audiences would only buy it coming out of Frank’s mouth if Frank were a Proust scholar. Makes sense to me. While I don’t necessarily agree with the Proustian sentiment, I absolutely buy that it’s something that Frank would say—and that it’s something his nephew Dwayne would find comfort in.
- Arndt also pointed out that a lot of comedies make the mistake of trying to be funny right away. He was determined to start low-key, introduce each character, and allow you to enter into the reality of these people, before wacky things start happening.
- Dayton and Faris used real child beauty pageant contestants for the last part of the film—it saved the time and money that would have been necessary to train child actors. Plus, it certainly adds some very, very scary authenticity.
- The now ten-year-old Best Supporting Actress nominee Abigail Breslin was cast in Little Miss Sunshine when she was six years old. By the time they got around to filming, she was around nine. Faris pointed out that, oddly enough, she had already had more film experience than the first-time movie-directors (whose previous experience had been limited to music videos and commercials) and the first-time screenwriter. Faris also mentioned that she was particularly impressed by Breslin’s capacity to listen to the other characters in a scene, rather than playing to the audience.
I really liked Little Miss Sunshine’s screenplay—but it’s up against The Queen in the Best Original Screenplay category. It’s so hard to compare them. I think I’d vote for The Queen, but I certainly won’t scream and kick things if Little Miss Sunshine wins. Sadly, probably neither will win Best Picture, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to hope.
Add comment February 6th, 2007