Review of Sunshine Cleaning (2008) by Elizabeth E — 07 Jan 2010

Sunshine Cleaning falls into the "cute n' quirky" category of modern film. In fact, it bears remarkable resemblance to Little Miss Sunshine, complete with Alan Arkin playing the role of mischief-loving Grandpa. While Sunshine Cleaning (and for that matter, Little Miss Sunshine) is not a bad film, it is kind of annoying because it's trying soooo hard to be original and poignant, but it falls into the same cliches and gimmicks that many "Hollywood" films and more conventional comedies fall into all the time. Instead of relying on a solid, forward-moving plot, Sunshine Cleaning relies on random scenes of quirky people doing quirky things--like Emily Blunt going "tresling" (standing underneath railroad tracks as a train goes by) as a way to let out her repressed emotions left over from her mother's suicide. Or Amy Adams talking to above-mentioned dead mother on a CB radio that transmits signals to "heaven". Yeah...these scenes didn't strike me as moving or realistic, but forcibly heartstring-pulling in that hipster-Juno-"I make snarky comments to avoid feeling feelings" way.

Ok, but there's some good stuff about Sunshine Cleaning too. The performances are solid and the actors are very likable across the board. I especially liked Emily Blunt as Norah, the apathetic sister to Amy Adams' earnest Rose. I also liked Steve Zahn as Rose's married lover. Also, the over-arching premise of the movie is interesting and funny: two sisters start a business cleaning up crime and trauma scenes. The first half of the movie is pretty funny. But the second half descends into schmaltz and unoriginality, which might be forgivable in your average Hollywood picture, but rings a false note in a movie that tries so desperately to be different--and ends up just the same as anything else.