Essay Little Miss Sunshine Belonging

Words: 937
Pages: 4

Hello, my name is Valerie Faris, and I am one of the co-directors (along with Jonathan Dayton) of the film, 'Little Miss Sunshine'. When making this film, my co-director and I heavily aimed to portray the different ways we as human beings search to find our place in the world. We focused on the conception of building relationships and trust within the concept of a family. We wanted to convey the concept that when it comes to family, its never too late to re-connect and belong.

Our film follows an extended family on their journey from New Mexico to California, as young daughter Olive prepares to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant.

In the beginning of the film, each member of the family feels isolated from one another,
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Frank calls out “No one gets left behind! No one gets left behind!”, and the use of repetition illustrates the growing sense of belonging to his family. When Sheryl says, “whatever happens, were a family” … “I love you guys so, so much”, which demonstrated the importance that is placed on family. The connotations of the word family were used to portray the growing sense of love, acceptance and connection.

By the end of the film the family had come much closer as they began to re-establish connections with each other. We used a long, establishing shot depicting the shocked and horrified members of the audience while Olive performed her dance, in contrast with the family standing together in row, smiling and clapping in support for Olive. This symbolised their unity, and portrayed the security that they were supplying for Olive, demonstrating their pride and acceptance for who she is. When they all jump up on the stage and dance, they are reinforcing this support, and combined with the feel-good music and panning shots depicting their facial expressions, it is conveyed for the first time in the movie a time where they are actually having fun together. It didn't matter what anyone else thought because they knew they had each other and thats all that matters. They were displaying to Olive that although they don't belong in that room, they still belong to each other, and they proved to Olive that she doesn't need to belong to that world,