For a film based upon a dysfunctional family’s struggle across America to enter their daughter into a beauty pageant – Little Miss Sunshine should go down in history as a modern classic; an absolutely wonderful cinematic release. With an outstanding cast, Little Miss Sunshine hit home with an original storyline that delivered humour, real emotions and heartfelt relationships between the characters. By the end of this film you will have laughed and cried, gotten emotionally involved and maybe a little confused – and it’s one of my favourite films.

At the very beginning of the film the family sit down for dinner, Olive (Abigail Breslin) finds out that she has been given a place in this year’s Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant – she lets out a scream of joy and runs around the house getting things together to take with her. Olive’s mom, Sheryl Hoover (Toni Colette) and her dad, Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear) argue how they are to get there due to not being able to afford travel expenses. After a heated discussion they finally settle on driving the 1000 miles in their minivan.

During the course of the family’s road trip the family experiences are both laughable and heartfelt, being comedic yet sometimes sad, you begin to fall in love with each character and relate to them on different levels. Little Miss Sunshine focuses on pushing forth the idea of living the American Dream – with Richard trying hard to become a motivational speaker, but failing – ironically, since his speeches are about winning. Olive is striving to become a beauty queen with the help of her WWII veteran, heroin addicted grandfather. Olive’s brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) has taken a vow of silence until he achieves his dream of becoming a RAF pilot and their uncle, Frank (Steve Carell) is being forced to stay with them whilst he recovers having just attempted suicide.

The inspiration of the story came from an article Michael Ardnt (who wrote the film) read in a newspaper, where Arnold Schwarzenegger was quoted speaking to a group of high school students: “If there’s one thing in this world I hate, it’s losers. I despise them” – Ardnt then began to develop the story for Little Miss Sunshine on this principle: “I thought there’s something so wrong with that attitude…I wanted to…attack that idea that in life you’re going up or you’re going down. So to a degree a child beauty pageant is the epitome of the ultimate stupid meaningless competition people put themselves through”.

Dwayne towards the latter part of the film memorably says, “You know what? Fuck beauty contests. Life is one fucking beauty contest after another. School, then college, then work…fuck that. 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.” – a speech that Ardnt will have made sure, made its way into the script in order to emphasise the entire meaning behind the film in a very subtle but obvious way.

Little Miss Sunshine was nominated for several Academy Awards, and came home with Best Original Screenplay for Michael Ardnt and Best Supporting Actor for Alan Arkin. “Grandpa” played by Arkin was well deserving of this award, however all characters played a vital role in the films success, each character being so important to the story and understanding the different relationships between the family.

I love Little Miss Sunshine, it’s a fantastic independent epic that demonstrated not only a shocking realism to dysfunctional family relationships, behaviours and hardships, but demonstrated it in such a way that it wasn’t miserable, it wasn’t depressing – it was moving, smart and very funny.

We are giving away two Blu-ray copies of Ruby Sparks (from the directors of Little Miss Sunshine) to a couple of our Facebook and Twitter followers. This charming film stars Paul Dano (also from Little Miss Sunshine) as a writer who creates a fictitious character named Ruby (Zoe Kazan) who ends up coming to life.

How do you enter the giveaway?

Step 1: LIKE Way Too Indie on Facebook

Step 2: Leave a comment on this page telling us what your favorite book is.

* Additional chance to win: Follow @WayTooIndie on Twitter. Then tweet: “@WayTooIndie (your favorite book) http://tooin.de/ruby”, to enter.

Details on the giveaway
Winners will be selected at random. Two (2) winners will win one (1) Blu-ray of Ruby Sparks. If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within two days of being contacted. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Must be in the United States to win. Entries can be submitted until November 2nd, 2012 at 11:59PM CT. This Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook or Twitter. Good luck!

AVAILABLE OCTOBER 30, 2012 ON BLU-RAY and DVD

From the directors of Little Miss Sunshine comes a “charming and delightful” (Marshall Fine) romantic comedy starring Paul Dano and writer-actress Zoe Kazan. Struggling with writer’s block and a lackluster love life, once-famous novelist Calvin (Dano) creates a beautiful fictitious character named Ruby (Kazan) who inspires him. But not only does this bring his work to life- it also brings Ruby to life- literally! Face-to-face with an actual relationship with his once virtual girlfriend, Calvin must now decide whether to pen this love story or let it write itself. Also starring Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas and Elliott Gould, Ruby Sparks is a smart coming-of-age story that proves true love can be remarkably magical.

DVD & Blu-ray Special Features:
● Behind the Story
● Real-Life Couples: Co-Stars & Directors
● Be Careful What You Wish For
● Theatrical Trailer
● Sneak Peeks of: The Sessions, The Blu-ray Experience and Lola Versus

Blu-ray Exclusive Special Features:
● Getting to Know the Cast
● Los Angeles: The Other Character

From the directors of Little Miss Sunshine comes Ruby Sparks, a whimsical film about a struggling writer who falls in love with a character he makes up. The film was written by Zoe Kazan who plays the lead role of Ruby Sparks. It is slightly ironic considering the film is about a writer bringing a character to life; which is essentially what she has done here for herself. You might go in expecting a standard romantic comedy and if so you will be pleasantly surprised that it is more than just that.

At one point (I will not say when) a character says “Just don’t tell me how it ends”, which is what I intend to abide. It is not really an easy film to spoil because the big “twist”, if you can call it that, is not really spoiling it. I do not believe it is a spoiler if that is what the entire film is about, enough to where they include it in the official synopsis and trailers. But thankfully, Ruby Sparks is much more serious than the trailers let on. However, if you are an absolute purist; which I would doubt you would be if you made it this far, then you should stop right here and read nothing more about the film. As always, I never try to ruin a film in my reviews for anyone who has not seen the film yet.

Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) is a famous writer who is struggling to find both inspiration for his next novel as well as romance in his life. The highly-acclaimed novel that made him famous is now ten years old and he has not made a very successful follow up since. So now he is currently working on what he hopes to be his next big hit and prove to himself that his career has not peaked. Not helping his confidence is his agent when he admits that living up to your first work is hard when it is a mega hit. And that “sophomore slump” syndrome does not happen when you are mediocre to begin with. Not wise words to tell someone when they are having a writer’s block.

Calvin mentions early on that he does not want to use his fame to get girls because he knows that they would not really like him for who he is. Instead, he uses some clever tricks suggested to him by his therapist to meet people such as, getting a dog so people stop to talk to him on the street. He is inexperienced in the dating world as he has only had one serious relationship in his life. Add that fact that he is awkward and shy makes it hard for him to meet someone.

It is not until Calvin starts having dreams about the character he made up for his new book that he gets inspired to write. Calvin creates Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan), as the girl he has always wanted to be with, the perfect girl in his eyes. He gets so inspired that he cannot stop writing. Then he realizes that the reason he wants to write so much is because he fell in love with the girl he created. Which is healthy for his career but not for his personal life.

Ruby shows up in his dreams more and more until one day he no longer has to dream about her because she suddenly shows up in his real life. Of course, he believes she is imaginary because how could she exist? It is a writer’s fantasy to create someone who is perfect for you then magically you meet that person. As time passes he realizes that she may not be completely perfect as he was expecting.

The great moral of the film is that even the perfect girl from your dreams is going to have faults and to try to change them is both dangerous and wrong. As the old adage goes, be careful for what you wish for, it just may come true. There are major drawbacks to trying to play God. Calvin’s brother pointed it out to him at the beginning of the film when he said that the honeymoon phase of a relationship does not last; women are different up close.

There is a great scene where we see Calvin on a sofa talking to himself. Or at least that is what it appears. There is a deep voice that seems like it is coming from his head until it is revealed when he lays down and the shot opens up to spot the man who was sitting in front of him. The man ends up being his therapist. The reason why this short scene is so interesting is it is before we start seeing the character he makes up appear in his life. So it sets the stage, if you will, for what was to come later in the film.

Ruby Sparks could have been a very different film if it had chosen to focus on what I feel like a lot of filmmakers would have focused on, which is the gimmicky part of the film. Instead, it pleads with you not to try to make sense of it because it does not even bother to explain how it happens. Similar to what Midnight in Paris did, it just embraces the magic of it all and asks you to imagine what if it could be true. Besides, the best part of the film is not the person he creates but rather the person he becomes.