Review of Sunshine Cleaning (2008) by Michael Y — 24 Jan 2011

There was a very good movie in the middle of this. However, poor editing and excessive story obfuscated it from the audience, and the emotional impact of the movie was lost.

The story, simply, is that a woman with a child, sister, and father, is not doing so well in life. She is having an affair with a married man who will not leave his wife, she is working at menial jobs, and she is struggle to make ends meet. Her sister is a screw-up and constantly needs her help to bail her out. Her dad is a schemer whose schemes rarely work out. They are all lost and adrift since her mother committed suicide.

But then she stumbles on a job that she is good at: crime scene cleaner. She slowly creates her own business, gaining self-respect and blossoming as she takes courses to get better at it and gets more referrals. Soon, however, life intrudes once again: her sister makes a mistake and burns down a client's house.

If the movie had, like I did above, focus entirely on her, it would have been good and had much more impact. However, they included too many scenes with the father (Alan Arkin, playing the same older character he's been doing since Little Miss Sunshine) and with the sister that are not part of the main story. These meander and don't, ultimately, go anywhere. They get in the way of the main story and hurt the movie. They should also have invested more in the mom's suicide story, as it is the impetus for where these characters are and what they are doing now.

All in all, I liked the movie. It had its flaws but the likeable cast, smooth direction, and sweet story are nice enough to recommend it, even with its flaws. It's flawed, but a nice little movie for those flaws.