History Film / LittleMissSunshine

* AtomicFBomb : [[spoiler:Dwayne wants to fly in the Air Force, and has sworn not to talk until he does. He does very well with his vow, until he finds out he's colorblind, and won't be allowed to fly. He starts flailing out in the back of the van. They pull over, and Dwayne immediately jumps out, runs several yards away, and curls down into a small ball, before letting out a resounding "FUCK!" and bursting into tears.]]

* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Ms. California.

* ButtMonkey: The Hoovers went through ''a lot'' during the course of the film.

* ChekhovsGun: The porn magazines.

* ClusterFBomb: [[spoiler:Dwayne]]: "You know what? Fuck beauty contests. Life is one fucking beauty contest after another. School, then college, then work... Fuck that. [[spoiler:And fuck the Air Force Academy. If I want to fly, I'll find a way to fly.]] You do what you love, and fuck the rest."

---> "Every night it's the fucking chicken! Holy God Almighty! Is it possible just once we could get something to eat for dinner around here that's not the goddamned fucking chicken?"

* CorruptionOfAMinor: Having the kids help them [[spoiler: smuggle a dead body out of a hospital]] can't be healthy.

* [[spoiler: MentorOccupationalHazard: Grandpa, who teaches Olive her routine and supports her the whole way, dies halfway to the pageant.]]

* ObnoxiousInLaws: Richard and his brother-in-law Frank doesn't get along well.
* [[spoiler: OfCorpseHesAlive: Smuggling the dead grandfather out of the hospital]]

* ShoutOut: Possibly. [[spoiler: Frank manages to [[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus summarize Proust in 30 seconds]]]].

-->'''Dwayne's Sign:''' ''I hate everyone.''
-->'''Frank:''' Oh, come on, what about your family?
-->'''Dwayne:''' ''(underlines "everyone")''

* TakeThat: The entire film is allegedly a TakeThat to a speech by Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger in which he claimed to hate "losers."

* TeensAreShort: Averted, Dwayne is at least as tall as his mother and uncle.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: After his F-Bomb moment, Dwayne delivers one to his family out of anger and frustration. Olive is able to calm him down with a hug and the rest of the family are very forgiving of his hurtful words because they understand how upset he was.

* TooMuchInformation: The grandfather is good at providing this:
--> '''Grandpa:''' Look, I know you are a homo and all, but maybe you can appreciate this. You go to one of those places, there's four women for every guy. Can you imagine what that's like?
--> '''Frank:''' You must have been very busy.
--> '''Grandpa:''' Ho oh. I had second degree burns on my johnson, I kid you not.

* TraumaCongaLine: The events leading up to Frank's suicide attempt. First, he fell in love with one of his students, who didn't return his feelings and started a relationship with Frank's rival, Larry Sugarman instead. Frank was so upset by this, that his behavior got him fired, and he had to leave his apartment move into a motel. Then he heard that Sugarman got a "Genius Grant" from the [=MacArthur=] Foundation. At this point he couldn't take it any longer and tried to kill himself.

* WhamLine: "[[spoiler:Grandpa won't wake up]]..."

* WrestlerInAllOfUs: [[spoiler: Richard gave the pageant MC a Full Nelson when the latter is attempting to stop Olive's performance.]]

* CatharticScream: Dwayne is SuddenlyVoiced and screams his lunges out on learning that his color-blindness will prevent him from becoming an Air Force pilot.

** The [[ManInWhite outfit]] that Frank is wearing in the entire film looks very similar to what Creator/SteveCarell wore during the [[SuddenMusicalEnding Sudden Musical]] and DancePartyEnding of ''Film/TheFortyYearOldVirgin''.

%%* ManInWhite: Frank.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:None of the Hoovers get what they want. Dwayne can't enlist in the Air Force, Richard's program doesn't sell, Frank's still nowhere close to fixing his life, Edwin's dead, and Olive didn't even win the pageant (and in fact is prohibited from participating in any more pageants in the state of California). But everyone's matured considerably from the whole ordeal and the family is now closer than it's ever been.]]

* DysfunctionalFamily: Mother and father on the verge of divorce, mopey son that hates everybody, suicidally-depressed uncle, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking grandfather who likes porn.]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/293389da_aed2_4de3_9ebd_02585fc6cb5e.jpeg]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:None of the characters get what they want. Dwayne can't enlist in the Air Force, Richard's program doesn't sell, Frank's still nowhere close to fixing his life, Edwin's dead, and Olive didn't win the pageant (and in fact is prohibited from participating in any more pageants in the state of California). But everyone's matured considerably from the whole ordeal and the family is now closer than it's ever been.]]

* {{Hypocrite}}: The whole pageant, apparently it's okay to have little girls parade around in bikinis with tons of make up on, [[spoiler: but Olive's act is going too far]]. Presumably, it's not okay for [[spoiler: "[[HollywoodHomely fat]]" girls.]]

* BadassGrandpa: Take a wild guess.

** Other than his vow of silence, he's fairly reasonable and moderate about Nietzsche and his philosophy, displaying none of the CardCarryingVillain traits often associated with the trope. He only has one rant about how pointless things are and it's delivered right after finding out his only dream in life is impossible (then a hug from his little sister calms him down and he apologizes for lashing out).

* {{Hypocrite}}: The whole pageant, apparently it's okay to have little girls parade around in bikinis with tons of make up on, [[spoiler: but Olive's act is going too far]].

* DirtyOldMan: The grandpa.

* AgeInappropriateArt: [[spoiler:Olive's performance at the pageant: a striptease at a beauty pageant to the song [[Creator/RickJames "Super Freak"]].]]

* AgeInappropriateArt: [[spoiler:Olive's performance at the pageant: a striptease at a beauty pageant to the song "Super Freak".]]

* BluffingTheAuthorities: The father, Richard, attempts this to prevent a highway patrolman from noticing that [[spoiler: the dead body of the grandfather, Edwin,]] is being stored in their van.

[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/littlemisssunshine.jpg]]

A [[BlackComedy Dark, dysfunctional]] and wildly hilarious family {{Dramedy}} about a {{Road Trip|Plot}}, directed by husband-and-wife team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.

-->"''A real loser is someone who's so afraid of not winning he doesn't even try.''"
-->--'''Grandpa'''

[[BlackComedy Dark, dysfunctional]] and wildly hilarious family comedy about a {{Road Trip|Plot}}, directed by husband-and-wife team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.

* {{Lolicon}}: The pageant MC sure gives some creepy vibes...

** Richard's not the first guy to be screwed over by [[{{Fargo}} Stan Grossman.]]

* CheerfulChild: Olive, though breaks down at one time, is almost always jolly and endearing.

* In ''Film/LittleMissSunshine'', Dwayne wants to be an Air Force pilot and has taken a vow of silence until he succeeds. Finding out he's color blind and therefore won't be able to fly causes him to drop an AtomicFBomb.

* BittersweetEnding