Indie filmmaking has thrown up its own distinct genres since the early ‘90s, and Sunshine Cleaning is a nearly perfect example of one variety, the one where a dysfunctional set of relatives learn about life and love on the way to coming to terms with the past through some new life-altering endeavour, preferably in some quasi-obscure locale and sporting “Sunshine” or “Happy” or “Wedding” in the title, with a dash of suggested irony to flavour the real schmaltz. Christina Jeffs, the Kiwi director who handled the competent but amazingly tame Plath biopic Sylvia a few years ago, tackles the formula here with some smooth deadpan filmmaking, whilst mostly leaving it to a good cast to do the lifting.
Amy Adams mostly loses her reflexive chirpiness in playing Rose Lorkowski, the uptight elder of two Albuquerque sisters, a former high school queen now working as a cleaner as she enters her ‘30s, whilst her younger sister Norah (Emily Blunt) drifts aimlessly from job to job. They were left perpetually dazed and bemused by the suicide of their mother when they were very young, and with a salesman father (Alan Arkin) who, like all movie salesmen, is floundering. Rose is sustaining an affair with her one-time high school boyfriend (Steve Zahn) who’s now a married policeman: at his prodding, Rose starts her own business cleaning up crime scenes, contending with the soiled remnants of other peoples’ lives ironically helping the sisters get their own on an even keel. Meanwhile Rose’s son Oscar (Jason Levack) ponders the nature of life and death and
Although Megan Holley’s script does its best to avoid overneatness, almost every situation is stock, the wry mix of everyday yearning and gentle comedy already the hallmark of the wannabe Sundance blockbuster. From Norah giving in to the temptation to involve herself in the life of the unwitting daughter (Mary Lynn Rajskub) of a suicide victim, and finding herself assumed to be a potential romantic partner, before accidentally burning down a house she’s supposed to clean, as a prelude to driving out of town at the end with a hopeful look on her face, to young Oscar trying to communicate with the Great Beyond with a CB radio, it’s the sort of thing where even if you’re not absolutely certain you’ve seen it before, you sure feel like you have. Blunt is the main reason to watch, playing her role with an edge of spry humour and soft-pedalled soul that softens the cliché of the punk-slacker younger sibling, a thankfully fine job after her rudderless turn in The Young Victoria. Arkin has little to stretch his great comic skills, but the finale hands him a gracefully funny little moment in an upbeat twist that is, well, just a little sunshiny.