Review of Sunshine Cleaning (2008) by Sigurros Elin B — 09 Mar 2010

As I just reviewed in "Julia and Julie", I'm beginning to see a pattern where Amy Adams is desperately trying to clear her image of being the girly girl princess like she was in Enchanted (kind of reminiscent of how Jim Carrey tried to come off as a dramatic actor when we all know he's only suited to being a psychotic, comical maniac). But, she falls short of success again in Sunshine Cleaning. Now, I'm not gonna look up who directed this movie, but, I bet you, being as how predictably stylish this movie was, that it was probably by the person who was influenced by the directers Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich, two Indie movies I openly think are garbage.

The movie has a lot of visual dark tones reminiscent of the two movies mentioned, and other overtly indie movies such as Feeling Minnesota. I hate Indie movies that adopt cinematic cliche and "formulas for creating an Indie move." Well, that's the perception I felt sitting thru this movie sadly.

In both former movies I just mentioned, they're a little more "surrealized" than sunshine cleaning, but there's a sort of over-Indie-ishness that all three share which annoy me. The latter movie shares this desire to make starlet's look as white trash looking as possible. In this case Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are the two guinea pigs.

Although I was impressed by Emily Blunt's American accent, and at times, impressed by Amy Adam's vulnerability, I just wasn't convinced by them enough to see much value in this movie. After all, what's the point of good acting if the movie sucks, which, this one does, in my opinion? Maybe bad unknown actors would have made this movie better.

Mainly, I wasn't convinced by how a person could suddenly make a whole lotta money cleaning up death scenes. That's where it reminded me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In order to like the movie, you have to accept the gimmick. In ESOTSM, that gimmack was a "brain cleaning serivce." In Sunshine Cleaning, the gimmack was a crime scene blood and gore cleaning service.

A pet peeve I have of movies is when things become "gimmicky." As we saw in the "vortex" to John Malkovich's mind in "Being John Malkovich"...the problem with gimmacks is that suddenly you're not really focusing on the character, but rather, a story of gimmack's. I simply feel like the director's F'ing with the audience's brain which tells me the director is insecure and uncreative. Just manipulative and shallow. Another example of a gimmick was how in fight club, it was cool to crash self-help groups or gimmack number 2, the concept of creating a fight club itself with rules. So daunting to me. So pathetically boring.

Although I did like the scene's where Amy Adam's hopelessly fools around with a married man (that is to say, I felt her character's pain), that wasn't enough to keep me from falling asleep on this one.

What happened in the end? She learned that one-armed men have more soul than gutless married men? I don't know. I honestly couldn't care enough to get that far.

It's not that I don't mind maggots, or blood on celings in gun shops, or shower doors, it's just that I didn't see the point in all those theatrics when I'm not sold on either the story or any of the characters. Poor screenplays seem to be source of my dilemma with movies such as this.

I've seen Amy Adams in three consecutive movies now that in my opinion were fodder. I'm starting to lose hope for her being a successful actress. I do hope she reads her scripts more carefully before over acting in a movie that lacks depth.

I'm gonna thumbs down this movie. I love Indie movies like the next person. But not Indie Movies that are as trashy as a stenched out mattress in a trailer.

One last thing on director's being "manipulative": why is it that poor small town USA cities have so much less lighting and color than polluted big cities? Lynch didn't use that formula in Blue Velvet did he? Wender's didn't darken Butte, Montana in "Don't Come Knocking" did he? We saw beauty even in the most boring and desolate parts of the country.

On the other hand, I'm noticing an induced metaphor of darkly lit cowtowns as being an expression of the apathetic nature of small town people. A bias, even to me as a city person, I find offensive.