Steve Carell is an undisputed king of comedy. His ability to blend awkward humor with genuine heart has earned him his status as a comedy legend, and he has spent the past several decades making people laugh on the big and small screen. Just a year after debuting in his breakout role as Michael Scott in The Office, Carell starred in a modern comedy masterpiece that HBO Max subscribers can now stream 20 years later.
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That movie is Little Miss Sunshine, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’ 2006 tragicomedy about a dysfunctional family’s chaotic cross-country road trip in their VW bus to get their young daughter, Olive, into the finals of a beauty pageant. The movie celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, and HBO Max subscribers can revisit it after Little Miss Sunshine started streaming on March 1st. Carell stars in the film as Frank, a suicidal, Proust scholar uncle who has recently been discharged from a hospital following a failed suicide attempt and is taken in by his sister’s family. Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, and Alan Arkin round out the Hoover family.
Steve Carell’s Little Miss Sunshine Brings Laughs and Heart
Little Miss Sunshine is a masterful blend of hilarious dark comedy and deep, emotional heart. The entire movie is a constant rollercoaster of emotions as it perfectly shifts between laugh-out-loud scenarios and heart-wrenching moments of connection. The entire movie is driven by the clashing personalities of an increasingly stressed-out family – a perfectionist father, a suicidal uncle, a foul-mouthed grandpa, and an optimistic young Olive – and the physical constraints of the bright yellow Volkswagen microbus, which acts as a pressure cooker for the family’s chaotic, absurd journey. Throughout the film, the dysfunctional Hoover family isn’t just forced into increasingly absurd and uncomfortable situations that lead to plenty of laughs but also into moments that force them to confront their personal struggles.
Little Miss Sunshine is just as much about embracing failure and imperfection and rejecting toxic hustle culture as it is about the hilarity of the dysfunctional family road trip. The film presents an authentic, absurdist look at life and gives a great payoff with the iconic and cathartic end dance sequence. The movie is one of the best feel-good movies in recent memory, and its matching 91% critic and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes remain the highest in Carell’s movie career.
What’s New on HBO Max?
HBO Max subscribers have no shortage of great streaming options this March. Throughout the month, the streamer has added movies including Above Suspicion, Crazy, Stupid, Love., Evan Almighty, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Swiss Army Man, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. March also brought the debut of Carell’s new HBO original comedy show, Rooster, which drops new episodes Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.
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