The Movie Press
  • Movie Reviews
  • Twitter News/Updates
  • News & Notes
  • DVD
  • Box Office Results
  • Contact
  • About Us
Another "Sunshine" indie comedy 03/26/2009
0 Comments
 

With its crotchety old grandpa, precocious youngster and busted van, Sunshine Cleaning is going to have a hard time fending off comparisons to Little Miss Sunshine. Throw in a little Alan Arkin, and it is an incredibly similar movie. But where Little Miss Sunshine had the oh-so-likable Greg Kinnear, this flick survives comparisons with the charming leads of Amy Adams and Emily Blunt.

Set in New Mexico (getting flashbacks yet?), Sunshine is the story of sisters Rose (Adams) and Norah (Blunt), who have never dealt with the suicide of their mother and are always at odds with each other. Norah would rather sleep til noon and smoke weed than make it to her waitressing gig, and Rose, the former Homecoming Queen, is a struggling single mom and maid who is having an affair with her now-cop high school sweetheart (Steve Zahn). When Rose needs some extra cash to stick her son in a private school, her boyfriend gives her the idea to get in the corpse cleaning business, which is supposedly lucrative. Arkin is their zany dad who's always on the prowl for get-rick-quick schemes.

Soon Rose is giving up cleaning the homes of her former cheerleading squad to whiz about town in an old veedub van (continue flashbacks) with Norah in tow to cheerily scrub blood out of showers. There's a small sideplot that never quite goes anywhere involving Norah and Mary Lynn Rajskub.

What Little Miss Sunshine had going for it was its cute plot and rich characters. While Sunshine Cleaning almost reaches those goals in this quiet dramedy, it more than makes up for it in its leading ladies. Adams radiates the screen, and makes the audience cheer for her down-but-not out character. My only qualm with her is that I wanted to know what happened that made her fade from queen to lowly maid. On that note, I read one reviewer state that he didn't buy that two such beautiful and smart ladies could have no careers or good men in their lives. Clearly, this dude hasn't seen the state of the economy or dating scene out there... No matter, Adams packs warmth and humor into every scene, and is always a delight to watch.

Blunt complements Adams with her not quite as tough as she thinks, eyerolling attitude and deadpan delivery. Arkin is a delight as usual, but he's fairly wasted in the same role as Little Miss Sunshine. Sunshine Cleaning is a cheery little film with beautiful costars. It may not be overly memorable, but it's definitely worth checking out to forget all the woes of the real world for a couple of hours.

--Darcie Duttweiler



 


Comments




Leave a Reply

    Archives

    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009
    May 2009
    April 2009
    March 2009
    February 2009
    January 2009
    December 2008
    November 2008
    October 2008
    September 2008
    August 2008

    Categories

    All
    Austin Film Festival
    Darcie Duttweiler Reviews
    Eric Pulsifer Reviews
    Fantastic Fest
    Greg Maclennan Reviews
    Greg Wilson Reviews
    Jessica Hixson Reviews
    Mark Collins Reviews
    Reviews
    Sxsw

    RSS Feed


Create a free website with Weebly