SNMR 7.8: "Sunshine Cleaning"

GREEN'S BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE REVIEW:

Rose Lorkowski (Adams) is a single mom trying desperately to make ends meet so that she can send her son to a private school. She learns of a possible opportunity through her high school ex-boyfriend and Mac (Zahn), who is a police officer and whom she's having an affair with. The job opportunity: crime scene clean up. She rakes in her slacker sister Norah (Blunt) to help and together they start the business. All is going well until an unfortunate accident derails the company.

This offbeat comedy drama didn't get a wide release in theaters (at least in my area anyway) so you may not have even heard of it.

Both Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are decent in their performances here. Alan Arkin is good as the salesman father, adding a bit of levity to the film with his schemes. Sunshine Cleaning is Megan Holley's first writing credit, according to imdb.com. It's not bad for a first screenplay. I thought the characters could have been developed a bit more, for example the relationship between Rose and supply store owner Winston (Collins) which is clearly hinted at but goes no further. Christine Jeffs, in her third directorial assignment, does a good job keeping the story moving, given the material, but does nothing to wow you. The story does have a decent ending, wrapping everything up in a semi-satisfying fashion.

After watching this film I still wasn't sure what to make of it. You know, did I like it or not? The answer is that it's a good movie but not great. What was helpful for me was a short featurette of an interview with two women who have their own real life clean up business and could relate to personal experience some of the situations from the movie.

I had wanted to see this movie when it played in the theater, but never did, and I'm glad. When Cleaning came out on DVD I bought it solely because Amy Adams is in it, as I've enjoyed the other movies I've seen that she's been in. This movie is a decent rental choice.

**½ out of *****

Sunshine Cleaning (2008, R, 91 minutes), starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin, Steve Zahn, Clifton Collins Jr. and Mary Lynn Rajskub. Written by Megan Holley and Directed by Christine Jeffs.