Little Miss Sunshine

The first feature by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton is staged almost entirely inside one set. Most of these hundred and two minutes happen in the bus, and the comedy runs on a repeating malfunction: a horn that sounds by itself, a door that sticks, a van that must be push started. The repetition sets the rhythm, but anyone waiting on a change of scene faces a long flat stretch. Conditions were less comfortable than they look. Five converted Volkswagen buses were used, and Greg Kinnear described travelling near fifty miles an hour in a seventy one model with no side airbags, the cast sometimes stuck inside for hours a day. The screenplay has an unusual history. Michael Arndt finished a first draft in four days in May 2000, and it was only bought in December 2001. After the 2006 Sundance screening an overnight negotiation sold worldwide rights for ten and a half million dollars plus a share of gross, among the largest deals the festival had seen. An eight million dollar budget returned over a hundred million, and Arndt and Alan Arkin won Academy Awards. Worth it if the turn in the last twenty minutes, where comedy becomes sustained embarrassment, sounds like the destination. Skip it if road films should deliver landscape and varied stops.