About the title
Olive is a little girl who dreams of winning the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant. Her family also wants Olive's dream to come true, but they're so weighed down by their own quirks, neuroses, and problems that they can barely help her. Olive's father, Richard, barely communicates with his daughter and only really keeps up a relationship with her mother. Her uncle Frank, a renowned scholar, attempted suicide after a failed romance with a male graduate student.