"Sunshine Cleaning" is not a bad film at all. However, it really is not a particularly pleasant or engaging one either. As a result, it's a film worth seeing but not at all one you should go out of your way to watch.
Sunshine Cleaning is the name of a company started by two sisters. It does a much needed but very disgusting service—cleaning up after deaths. In other words, once the ambulance or police removed the corpse, the women would clean up all the bodily fluids and smells. The story centers on a highly dysfunctional family that looks almost as if they could be featured on "The Jerry Springer Show" if their self-imposed problems continue to steamroll. The grandfather (Alan Arkin) is doing his best to help raise a dysfunctional young grandson. His aunt is just an irresponsible flake. And the mother (Amy Adams) is like a poster child for a screwed up mother. Her child was fathered by a married man—and he and Adams have been having an affair for many years while he still is married. You certainly can't respect these folks and at times you wonder why you should care about them or their problems. Now they make some efforts to change but by the end of the film they still are a mess and still difficult to love. And this is the biggest obstacle I had in watching the film. The characters failed in any attempt to get us to care. This is sad since the acting was quite good—very, very good at times.
By the way, I didn't know it until after I finished the movie, but this is the same Emily Blunt in this film that starred in "The Young Victoria"--what an amazingly different sort of character and acting experience--I never would have suspected they were the same actress!
Sunshine Cleaning is the name of a company started by two sisters. It does a much needed but very disgusting service—cleaning up after deaths. In other words, once the ambulance or police removed the corpse, the women would clean up all the bodily fluids and smells. The story centers on a highly dysfunctional family that looks almost as if they could be featured on "The Jerry Springer Show" if their self-imposed problems continue to steamroll. The grandfather (Alan Arkin) is doing his best to help raise a dysfunctional young grandson. His aunt is just an irresponsible flake. And the mother (Amy Adams) is like a poster child for a screwed up mother. Her child was fathered by a married man—and he and Adams have been having an affair for many years while he still is married. You certainly can't respect these folks and at times you wonder why you should care about them or their problems. Now they make some efforts to change but by the end of the film they still are a mess and still difficult to love. And this is the biggest obstacle I had in watching the film. The characters failed in any attempt to get us to care. This is sad since the acting was quite good—very, very good at times.
By the way, I didn't know it until after I finished the movie, but this is the same Emily Blunt in this film that starred in "The Young Victoria"--what an amazingly different sort of character and acting experience--I never would have suspected they were the same actress!