'Sunshine Cleaning': Comedy on the dark side
Adams, Blunt are wonderful
Just because the word “sunshine” is in the title and Alan Arkin’s name is in the credits, don’t go thinking that “Sunshine Cleaning” is this year’s “Little Miss Sunshine.”
While it is true that lead actresses Amy Adams and Emily Blunt suffuse this film with warmth and light, “Sunshine Cleaning” has a significant dark side, one that you’d never see coming if you had only seen the trailers; one that hits between the eyes in the opening sequence. It also has an off-kilter quality, straining at some points to be a macabre comedy that should be set in Fargo, N. D., instead of Albuquerque, N. M., and at others to be a “Juno”-esque, quirky indie about dysfunctional families muddling through life’s rough spots with pluck and good will. It will drive some people to distraction.
But, if only for the brilliant performances by Adams and Blunt, it should be cut a lot of slack.
From the first moment it appears on screen, Adams’ face is a compelling entreaty to give this film the benefit of the, er, doubt. Adams plays Rose Lorkowski, a single mother who, though not yet 30, is fading as quickly as her dreams are. When she realizes her salary as a housekeeper won’t cover the cost of the tuition at the private school her 8-year-old son needs to be enrolled in, she takes the advice of her married lover (who is also her former high school sweetheart and maybe even the kid’s father) and launches a crime-scene cleanup service with her slacker younger sister, Norah (Blunt), to help.
Adams’ faded Rose is a preternatural head cheerleader, and one for a losing team, to boot. She is defiantly upbeat, constantly putting a brave face on everything, always making things look like they are better than they are. The two blunder onto their first cleanup site with little more than Rose’s Swiffers and Sham-Wow!s, completely oblivious to the fact that there are regulations governing biohazards, and that there are products far more effective than old toothbrushes for removing blood splatter from shower stall walls.
Blunt’s Norah is a character poised not so much to shatter as to flake apart, and the actress portrays her with just as much tenderness and humanity as Adams gives Rose. Norah is a loosely strung marionette in Goth makeup, a woman who, not equipped with her sister’s scrappy bravado, had muddled through her dismal and shabby life aided by imagination and gallows humor.
The sisters end up being naturals at the business of cleaning up after death, whether they are natural, murders or what Norah calls the “do-it-yourself” kind. Most notably, they have a knack for connecting with the people who are left with the messes left behind by the dead.
As it just so happens, the job helps them both find a framework against which they can begin to understand their own tragic backstory.
Adams and Blunt are backed up by a group of actors who bring similar amounts of grace and honesty to their roles. The ever-reliable Steve Zahn gives a perfectly measured portrayal of Rose’s lover, Mac, a man who believes he is torn between the two women in his life, who is both a noble champion of Rose’s and a schmuck. Mary Lynn Rajskub (“24”) gives a poignant rendering of Lynn, a woman whose relationship with Norah is at once more and less than it seems. Clifton Collins Jr. (“Capote”) gives depth to the character of Winston, the one-armed owner of a janitorial supply store who helps Rose begin to see herself from a very different male point of view than she is used to. Arkin plays the girls’ father, basically reviving the character he nailed in “Little Miss Sunshine. “ His performance is less subtle than the others’, but it’s fine.
At times, “Sunshine Cleaning” struggles to find its tone. Segues from scenes that are darkly humorous to those that are heart-wrenching to those that are filled with cockeyed hope are often abrupt and awkward — but then, so are such transitions in real life.
The biggest problem with the film is its facile ending, which is so tidy and happy it feels ever so much like the filmmakers are blowing sunshine up filmgoers’ skirts.•
SUNSHINE CLEANING
★★★
STARRING: Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin and Steve Zahn
DIRECTOR: Christine Jeffs
RUNNING TIME: 92 minutes
RATING: R for language, disturbing images, some sexuality and drug use.
THE LOWDOWN: A single mother persuades her sister to go into the crime-scene cleanup business with her to make quick cash for her son’s private school.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments