Sunshine Cleaning
Review
by Anthony Morris
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Sunshine Cleaning |
Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams) used to be a high school cheerleader dating the head of the football team.
Now
she is a maid and a single mum in the same small town she grew up in
having an affair with the former head of the football team (Steve
Zahn), who is now a cop and married to someone else.
So
it's not all that surprising that she isn't exactly content with her
lot in life... unlike her younger sister Norah (Emily Blunt), who seems
more than happy sleeping in, living with their father Joe (Alan Arkin),
and going from dead-end job to dead-end job.
Then Rose
finds out that there is real money to be made in crime scene clean-ups,
and while it's not an ideal way to make money, with her somewhat odd
eight year-old son being kicked out of public school, money for private
school is what she needs.
And so Sunshine Cleaning
is born, as Rose drags the initially reluctant Norah to various scenes
of violent and natural death to clean up what's left behind.
For
a while this film does a solid job of working the quirky indy groove,
with the grim nature of Rose's job and her life in general providing a
much-needed counterpoint to the occasionally too-cute or too-obvious
moments that the story brought forward.
Adams especially
is a great performer, able to embody her characters perky charm while
never fully concealing the flickering despair in her eyes.
But
as things trundle towards a conclusion two things become obvious: this
really wants to jam in as many "heartfelt" moments as possible even if
putting them back-to-back is way too much, and nobody really sat down
to work out a proper ending.
It's not like the film just
stops (though one character basically just... leaves), but for
something that started out so strong, the way it winds down is a bit of
a disappointment no matter how happy an ending for all involved it
might be. 3 out
of 5
Sunshine Cleaning
Australian release: 11th June, 2009
Official
Site: Sunshine Cleaning
Cast: Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin
Director: Christine Jeffs
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