CINEMA: Sunshine Cleaning
From the producers of Little Miss Sunshine comes this equally quirky, poignantly funny film about sisterhood, motherhood, small dreams and big amounts of mess.
The sisters are Rose (Amy Adams), a single mum working as a maid, and slobby slacker Norah (Emily Blunt), who is so incompetent she can’t even keep her job as a diner waitress. Rose works hard and tries to remain cheery about life, mostly for the sake of her son Oscar (Jason Spavack), a young boy who is old before his time and dad (Alan Arkin), whose get rich quick schemes usually end in disaster.
But money matters weigh Rose down, so when she hears big bucks can be made in the crime scene clear-up business she peels on her Marigolds, packs the vacuum in the boot of her car and gets ready to scrub. She enlists Norah’s help in this new venture and the sisters are soon up to their elbows in homicides, suicides and bodily fluids.
It’s at this point Rose realises she needs some help and a visit to the local cleaning product wholesaler sees her meeting Winston (Clifton Collins Jr.) the one-armed sales assistant who not only points her on the straight and narrow as far as bleaches and cleaning foams are concerned, but also makes her reconsider her long-term and unsatisfying affair with a married man.
This is a small film dealing with the minutiae of real people’s lives; the daily upsets and setbacks, and the struggle to just keep going. However, far from being a thoroughly depressing experience, it’s actually incredibly cathartic and moving, mainly because Amy Adams is such an adorable character. She makes Rose naturally attractive with an openness and honesty of spirit that makes the audience get firmly behind her. Blunt has a slightly harder job of it with Norah, whose awkwardness and laziness initially make her less easy to like, but who seems to wake up on screen as the film progresses.
Then there’s the uncanny chemistry between Oscar and his granddad, both dreaming of a better life and bigger opportunities. The excellent acting is complemented by some stunning location work in and around Albuquerque that almost becomes another character in the movie.
There’s nothing big or clever about this film, just a whole lot of heart, making it a really satisfying cinema experience.
Dee Pilgrim
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