Movies

Directed Summary
Little Miss Sunsine is a 2006 comedy-drama-adventure film about a seven-year old girl named Olive Hoover who desired to join and bring home the crown from the beauty pageant Little Miss Sunshine. Bringing her dysfunctional family and driving their almost broken down Volkswagen T2 Microbus, they went on an 800-mile road trip from their home in Albquerque to California where the pageant was held. In the course of their travel, they came across several setbacks that made them arrive four minutes late and was almost refused by the organizers to join the pageant. In the talent portion, Olive innocently performed a burlesque dance number taught by her grandfather and unaware of the dismayed reaction of the audience. Angered by her outrageous performance, the organizers ordered her parents to remove her from the stage, but instead of taking Olive down, her family joined in her dance.  Olives family was next seen at the hotels security office where they were banned from participating in Little Miss Sunshine forever. The movie ends with Olives family riding their van home, happy and fulfilled.

Subject of the Paragraph
Achieving the American Dream.

Controlling Idea
Dayton and Fariss (2006) film depicted through the Hoover family, a side effect of selfishness and self-indulgence from fully concentrating on that American dream.

Corroborating Details
In Little Miss Sunshine, Olives father, Richard Hoover, is an aspiring motivational  speaker and life coach that has a dream of having his own motivational business. With his type A personality, his attitude toward his family was unpleasant and he perceives them as mediocre from the wrong decisions they made in their life. However, with the loss of an important contract to start his motivational business thus diminishing his dream, he was able to experience first hand what it was like to be disappointed and realized how inconsiderately he treated the other members of his family. Richard Hoover is a good example of an achiever of that American dream who focused so much on fulfilling it that he lost sight of what really mattered his family.

Careful Description of the Details
In Jonathan and Fariss film (2006), the Hoover family portrayed the concept of  achieving the American dream, of getting that prosperity and satisfaction in life. Members of the family formed plans of their own to acquire those desires but only to find out in the course of their travel and problems they came across that those desires were unattainable. But by joining Olive in her performance amidst being ordered by the organizers to finish her scandalous dance, they realized that there are more to than just fulfilling their dreams.

Connection to the Thesis
Dayton and Faris (2006) depicted dreams that are ruined by present conditions or circumstances but with those diminished desires, one realizes or learns what are the things that really matter. Sometimes people tend to overlook and lose sight of what is  essential and through disappointments and failures, a person recognizes what is truly important.