Put on a Happy Face
Written: Jun 15 '09
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Safety lessons.
Cons: Amateurish camera work.
The Bottom Line: You get into the characters' lives and appreciate their choices and limitations.
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| topreviewerman's Full Review: Sunshine Cleaning |
In Texas gun control means a steady hand. That and a 20 gauge Western Competition Special deposit a customer's brains all over the store—"He's in fishing too"—, and the owner's gotta shell out $3000 for the cleanup. The responding cop Mac (Steve Zahn) mentions this racket to his steady squeeze Rose (Amy Adams) who needs to pay private school tuition for her (their) 7-year-old son Oscar (Jason Spevack), so she co-opts her accident-prone sister Norah (Emily Blunt) into joining her in starting Sunshine Cleaning specializing in crime scene cleanups.
They muddle along okay until one day Rose sends Norah to clean by herself so Rose can attend a baby shower for one of her old high school friends. She didn't have much in common with her old friend after all, and when she arrives at the cleanup, there isn't much left except an apologetic Norah and a lot of emergency vehicles. That leads to a lot of soul searching regarding their family history and choices they've both made.
"Sunshine Cleaning" makes more sense if instead of following it as a linear progression of events, we start with Rose's core assessment of herself and piece that together with what we're able to garner along the way. She concludes: "I'm good at making men want me, but not dating and marrying me. I'm also good at leading a cheer." In high school she was a cheerleader who got knocked up by Mac the quarterback. Mac married Heather, instead, and he's not about to leave her, although it takes Rose a while to realize that.
Their mom was a natural beauty who was cast in a speaking role when the movie producers came to town. She died when her daughters were little—"a do-it-yourself job"—to leave a bloody body to be found by them. It was Rose who took it upon herself to cheer up her younger sister who was in shock.
In high school Rose was a cheerleader, had by Mac, and still wanted by him, but not enough to leave his wife. Her (their) son Oscar, like a lot of boys, doesn't adapt well to sitting still in a boring classroom all day, so the authorities want to medicate him—"This is more than a suggestion; it's a requirement, and there are a lot of good drugs available with minimal side effects." Understandably, Rose pulls him out of school at that, cheering him by saying it's their problem, not his. One of the "minimal" side effects of (some) psychotropic drugs is suicide which might not seem so minimal to Rose considering her family history.
She puts a cheery face on Sunshine Cleaning, and a positive spin on the word the other boys taunt her son with referring to his illegitimacy. For all that, she finds it hard to raise him by herself, although she's not one to complain. We can deduce that idea from Winston (Clifton Collins Jr.) the one-armed cleaning supply store owner whose hobby is building model planes. He admits candidly to Oscar that it is indeed hard to build models one-handed. Norah tells Rose that she just couldn't do the cleaning job all by herself; it takes two. Their father Joe Lorkowski (Alan Arkin) tells her, "You think it's hard raising one by yourself? Try raising two." It looks like she may end up doing just that if she continues to let Mac have his way with her.
The climax occurs at the baby shower when cheerleader Rose presents her occupation in a cheery light to the women there who either let their husbands support them, or have jobs more fitting to their station in life. I'm not saying this is a movie warning of the perils of unwed motherhood, because it puts as cheerful a face on dire necessities as one could hope, but as a guy it sure doesn't make me feel like sowing any wild oats. It didn't seem to make the married women envious either. And if a woman wants a partner who won't some day go after a new beginning like Norah, she might do well to insist he tie the knot with her.
The camera work seemed to me to be the one substandard feature of this movie. When I was a kid, I had a box camera I'd use to take pictures, but there was always lots of background one had to find the subject in. "Sunshine Cleaning" reminds me of that. And yet, that played a nice contrast to the shot of the mom in the old movie shown on TV which looked more movie-like by comparison. Her line, "I recommend the pecan pie," was spoken with the Southern pronunciation of pecan which is pronounced the other way in the North. So that was a nice touch and tended to redeem the movie's one shortcoming.
My favorite usherette at the movie house was excited about "Sunshine Cleaning" when I went to see it, and I wouldn't discourage her at all. If the critics miss the import of some of its pieces for failing to fall in line with a linear plot, I'm not going to blame the movie, because some of them are made that way, and it's up to us to integrate it ourselves. If you think you can do that, then you'll probably enjoy "Sunshine Cleaning."
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Girl Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: A few glitches, but mostly complete.
Worst Part of this Film: Nothing
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Epinions.com ID:
topreviewerman
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Member: Earl Gosnell
Location: Eugene, OR
Reviews written: 78
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
BSEE, U. of Cincinnati. Ordained minister, United Congregation of Friends. Poet Laureate, Longfellow, Colorado.
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