New rule: No more buzzed-about Sundance films that include
“sunshine” in the title. Please? Discovering that Sunshine
Cleaning shares producers with Little Miss Sunshine is like
finding out something lame that you kind of suspected might be true
about the person you’re interested in, but that you were willing to
overlook out of optimistic desperation. It makes you feel gullible for
being attracted to it.
Still, one could hardly be blamed for finding comfort in the offbeat
premise of a single mom, Rose (Amy Adams!), and her grungy, grumpy
sister Norah (Emily Blunt!!!) going into business together as biohazard
removers and crime scene cleaners, scraping up the decomposing remains
of the victims of suicide, murder, and various other messy deaths.
In many respects, Sunshine Cleaning delivers: It’s charming
and interesting, with darkly gross comedy and characters you easily
warm to (like Clifton Collins Jr. as Winston, the sweet, one-armed man
who works at the professional cleaning supply store). When Norah falls
face first onto a blood-and-I-don’t-even-know-what-stained mattress
while the sisters are bickering, it’s good fun deciding whether crying,
puking, or laughing is most appropriate.
On the other hand, the sentimentality of the familial quirkiness and
self-realization can be a bit much, and there’s real danger in putting
too much emphasis on being so different. It’s already been put out to
the world that dysfunction can wear a loveable face, and it’s not that
it can’t bear repeating—but when you cast Alan Arkin as the
grandfather again, it makes one wonder.
So let’s not even get into picking on Sunshine for the
ineffectiveness of one subplot, or the staggering lack of conclusion in
another. Just put on your beer goggles, take the plunge, and hopefully,
get it out of your system. You have needs, after all, and it’s still
the cutest thing at the party.