Little Miss Sunshine

Olive Hoover has probably claimed a very special spot in my heart.

"You are the most beautiful girl in the world."

"You're just saying that."

"No! I'm madly in love with you and it's not because of your brains or your personality."

That has got to be my favorite lines in the entire movie.

Little Miss Sunshine, the story of a family on a cross country road trip to get their young daughter to the finals of a beauty pageant.

There you have dad, a "winner" who's really a loser deep down inside. You have mum, who chain smokes and always brings a bucket of chicken home for dinner. The brother who's taken a vow of silence and wants to be a jet pilot (but later finds out he's color blind). Grandpa is a crack addict. Uncle is gay and tried to kill himself.

And you've just met the most dysfunctional family.

Daddy packs everyone into the family VW bus and off they go to California to lend support to 7 year old Olive. Bus breaks down, Grandpa unexpectedly dies, brother discovers his vow of silence is futile, Daddy steals Grandpa's corpse from the hospital.

They make it to the finals. But Olive isn't anything like a beauty queen. She's not thin, nor is she wearing a skimpy bikini and feathers. None of it really mattered then, for the journey the family had endured, and their renewed knowledge of each other.

Olive Hoover took Grandpa, Dad, Mum, Uncle and Dwayne to California to make her dream of winning a beauty pageant a reality. She brought home a family.