SummaryOnce the high school cheerleading captain who dated the quarterback, Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams) now finds herself a thirty something single mother working as a maid. Her sister Norah, (Emily Blunt), is still living at home with their dad Joe (Alan Arkin), a salesman with a lifelong history of ill-fated get rich quick schemes. Desperate t...
SummaryOnce the high school cheerleading captain who dated the quarterback, Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams) now finds herself a thirty something single mother working as a maid. Her sister Norah, (Emily Blunt), is still living at home with their dad Joe (Alan Arkin), a salesman with a lifelong history of ill-fated get rich quick schemes. Desperate t...
That Sunshine Cleaning was made by women is best revealed in the filmmakers' willingness to let the story breathe on its own terms, without bringing in anything extraneous, unwelcome and exciting.
I enjoyed this movie, its quite dark of course but there is a lighter, more optimistic side to it I think. The story is one I've never seen before, its a pretty original movie, which can be a rarity to find these days I believe, so I quite enjoyed it. The characters are quite interesting and as the movie continues, we learn about what connects them to the crime scenes they clean, or more 'sanitise' and I did feel quite an attachment to them, especially to Rose, who has a young son (who turns eight in the movie) called Oscar, who is quite an endearing character. Rose has to raise funds to be able to afford to send Oscar to a special needs school and this is partly what causes her to decide to launch the cleaning business. Oscar is, quite typically as a kid, quite naive and I think that naivety is also quite present in his mum and her sister. It was nice to see Alan Arkin playing Oscars grandfather, Joe, I enjoyed the scenes featuring the two of them and how Joe would make Oscar feel better about himself and so on. There are some quite touching scenes in the movie, such as when Oscar is playing about with the two way radio in the newly bought old rust-bucket VW-Beetle-esque van that they use for the business. He recalls the car salesman kidding that the radio broadcasts up to heaven, so he's seen when his parents are busy elsewhere, posing questions and waiting to see if he'll get a response. There's another scene where Rose takes her self appointed new friend, Lynn (played by Mary Lynn Rajskub, known for playing Chloe in the TV drama show 24), and shows her how to get up to a ledge underneath train tracks when a train is arriving and she gets a rush from holding her hand up between the tracks then quickly pulling it away again. Another theme in the movie is that of acceptance, of course not everyone is over the moon to hear about what line of business their line, the biohazard cleanup business isn't the most glamorous business around but after completing a few jobs, the sisters feel that they get some sense of accomplishment from it, which they try to explain. I guess it goes to show that if you like what you do then thats all that matters. I think most people can relate to having people look down on you somewhat if your not what they'd think of as being successful.
Of course there are a few bleak and mild to moderately graphic scenes but I don't feel that overall the movie is without a fair dose of optimism. There is humour in it too but its quite light, you might guess that a movie about a pair of sisters cleaning up actual murder and suicide crime scenes isn't likely fodder for strong belly laughs and you'd be right but there is something amusing about how naive they are at first and the things they do before they learn how such jobs are supposed to be done. I think that the sisters are quite vulnerable as characters and they rely on each other and the guy who runs the local cleaning store, Winston, who finds it quite amusing to see how they announce their arrival to the business and how clearly naive they are about how to get started at first, to keep them right. These women aren't really the sort of people you'd perhaps expect to see cleaning up such scenes/places, yet as I've already hinted at, the reason why they chose to get into such an industry becomes more clear as the different crime scenes trigger flash backs that help the viewer to understand it a bit better.
I thought that this was a good movie which wasn't as dark as I had perhaps thought it might be. However, its not unrealistically bright and breezy as such either I suppose.
Yes, I'd recommend this film. I thought this was an interesting movie, it features a story I haven't really seen before and the cast did a good job portraying their characters well. The movie is somewhat bleak and sad but there is some optimism too. Its amusing in its own way too at points but I most liked the character portrayal because I ended up really wanting to see the sisters do well and to have a succssful business. Its an interesting movie that I would recommend to anyone curious about it.
A poignant movie that has it's flaws but is led by the performances of Blunt and Adams.
For this movie to work, dark humour is key and on the whole it delivers.
Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are two highly attractive, naturally funny actresses on the cusp of stardom so their pairing here as two lost souls is genius.
Quite emotionally powerful and funny, Sunshine Cleaning is a pleasant little film about life and, most importantly, life when you're dealt a bad hand. Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are great here and really have good chemistry. Alan Arkin also does well as is typically the case. The film suffers from the trappings of being a small film that certainly limit its scope, as it does feel small in nature, but it is certainly still quite successful. Director Christine Jeffs does a good job in the director's chair and this one is well written, well plotted, and well shot. An entirely unique film in terms of its plot, it does hit many markers when it comes to emotional comedy-dramas, but all the same, the unique focus of the plot really sets this one aside. However, this one's strongest attribute is the way in which it acts as a vehicle for Adams and Blunt to show their strength as leads in a film. Both turn in great performances that certainly hint at their present day status.
"Sunshine Cleaning's" shoe-string budget and minimalist style might hamper some of its intensity, but this modest effort from Christine Jeffs ultimately pleases the audience with organic emotion and a quirky sense of jocularity.
Sunshine Cleaning is familiar, yet absolutely fresh. A dark subject matter that could turn folks away--but the film makes light of it. I found Amy Adams and Emily Blunt to be more than enough to make this film worth it.
emily blunt is....looking still a lot like katy **** adams is.....attractive terribly.......Alan arkin is finally annoying........Steve zahns character is broken up with yet doesn't mind because hes already had banged Amy adams'.......i have no idea what this all means in a surreal sense ....also i thought gail the snails **** were flying everywhere for a second at the sex scene at first. no giggles in this what so ever
This movie was a big disappointment. The slow moving undeveloped plot never got off the ground and crashed on the runway. I had no empathy or patience with the characters and I would have had more satisfaction if they had all burned up in the house. I kept waiting for a humorous scene but it never came. It was more befitting an episode on a TV series than a movie.