Sunshine Cleaning, from the producers of Little Miss Sunshine, is another example of how the edgy has become the predictable. The outsiders are now the mainstream. It’s another labored dysfunctional family dramedy—par for the course for these "indie" films—with all the usual lame tropes: The main character gets a peculiar job. There’s a family member who rebels and supports weird things just for the sake of it. The cute little kid is typically a “freak,” just to set the film apart from the Disneysian family films, but not too much, as therein lies the design to make him appear even cuter to 21st century hipsters who no longer desire traditional cuteness but are still gullible enough to fall for that kind of jive anyway. Oh, and there’s a vulgar grandpa too. Gotta have a vulgar grandpa. This is a family grouping so irrationally contrived, it’s hard to find their antics at all funny or endearing.
It survives on the merit of the performances, specifically Amy Adams and Emily Blunt as two sisters who start a crime scene cleanup business. Adams is fantastic as always as Rose, a former high school princess who’s now a single mom working as a cleaning lady, still chasing after her high school quarterback sweetheart Mac (Steve Zahn), now a married cop. It is him who suggests her to go into the crime scene cleanup “racket,” after seeing how much money they charge property owners. As Rose’s sister Norah, Blunt loses herself and is radiant playing a screw-up wild child who won’t act her age. Not so impressive is Alan Arkin’s schtick as Rose and Norah’s crotchety dad, so reminiscent of his Little Miss Sunshine role that you get the feeling his character faked his death and went to live with a second family.
Sunshine Cleaning is the kind of film where, when the main character expresses envy towards her old high school gang (all of whom now rich, successful and/or married), a supporting character would lovingly coo, “You’re better than them” and we, as the audience destined to root for her, nod our heads in agreement. Wait, um, why?
It feels disingenuous to assume that those women, who for all we know worked hard to get where they are now, just because they’ve joined the upperclass, are automatically worse people than the ex-head cheerleader who shows no remorse being a homewrecker and likes to blame her sister when things go wrong. Rose doesn’t even leave the impression of a good mother, as we hardly see her around her son Oscar (Jason Spevack). We see more of the kid being foisted upon Norah or Grampa or some one-armed store owner Rose hardly knows (seriously), while she scampers off at night having sex in a dinky motel room with a married man. All signs point to her being a pretty terrible person, and it’s by the grace of Amy Adams’ virginal charisma that Rose doesn’t come across as a completely repugnant protagonist. The film tries to engineer an underdog vibe around Rose, without giving her the ethics and perseverance so essential in underdog stories.
You can easily tell why actors were drawn to the script by first-time screenwriter Megan Holley. It has some inspired character moments that allow a show of acting—Norah’s emotional train tressling, or Rose using a CB radio to “talk” to her dead mother—but unfortunately not enough of a story to make those showy bits justified, let alone resonate. The film coasts by with hardly any driving conflict in it. Even the discovery of the crime scene cleanup gig, which is the film’s core premise, comes as easily as a casual “Hey, by the way, you should do this job.” Don’t be surprised if the film ends on a disappointing note after wrapping things up just as easily.
To be fair, it fares slightly better than Little Miss Sunshine or its ilk because it at least uses its premise for something more than just an unusual setup; without having to stoop as low as LMS’s gag-worthy “life is just a beauty pageant” sermon. Rose and Norah are both haunted by their mother’s suicide. Their unlikely new venture allows them an opportunity to confront death and misery on a daily basis, allowing growth. Some of the film’s best moments are when it uses the cleanup job to show different facets of families dealing with death. Director Christine Jeffs commits to the darkness in the dark humor, rather than playing it for cheap quirkiness. Too bad it’s lacking in those moments, while overflowing in seen-it-before dysfunctional family dynamics. You can only watch Alan Arkin inappropriately interact with kids so many times.
"Sunshine Cleaning" opens March 13, 2009 and is rated R. Comedy, Drama. Directed by Christine Jeffs. Written by Megan Holley. Starring Alan Arkin, Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Steve Zahn, Mary Lynn Rajskub.
