When Olive finds out she’s eligible to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant , her family begrudgingly goes on a road trip to California to get her to the contest. Her family consists of people solely burdened by their own problems. Olive’s brother Dwayne is mute-by-choice, while Uncle Frank is a Proust scholar who recently had a botched suicide attempt. Her father Richard has a mouth for motivational speaking, but unfortunately doesn’t get very far. Richard’s father, Edwin coaches Olive on her act and is quite cantankerous in his overall reaction to any of the other family members. Finally, there’s Olive’s mother, Sheryl, a chain-smoking, stressed out housewife who barely speaks to her husband when she’s not busy yelling at him. Will they manage to get Olive to California before they self-destruct on each other? There’s only one way to find out.