Movie Review: "Sunshine Cleaning"

From the very top, Sunshine Cleaning accomplishes what many movies cannot. I couldn't keep my eyes off the screen! The initial scene is jarring enough to beg the question, "What kind of movie IS this!?"...and then it just gets better. It's a film about cleaning up messes, both literal and figurative. The basic plot is that Rose (Amy Adams, whose performance in Junebug was BONKERS!), a single mother and maid, starts a business with her younger sister, Nora (Emily Blunt, the only woman able to, in one film role, keep up with Meryl Streep and make up for the nearly-always-disappointing Anne Hathaway). Rose takes her experience as an ersatz Merry Maid and her need for quick cash, and begins taking jobs cleaning up crime scenes. I tend not to enjoy the gory or graphic, but seeing the messes that Rose and Nora face is entirely tolerable because Adams and Blunt play the scenes with such guts and finesse.

I just read an essay about how women, particularly female victims of rape or sexual abuse, need to change our feminine ideal. "We need to articulate a new vision that equates feminine strength not with repression and bravado, but with compassion and grit." Well, Megan Holley, the screenwriter, took that to heart. Rose and Nora are wonderfully human, and face tough obstacles with compassion and grit to spare. (Nora falls face-first into a mattress soaked with person-juice but still keeps with the job. She needs the money and her sister needs her, bottom line.)

And then we have Alan Arkin. Must I continue? Seriously, my only complaint about Little Miss Sunshine was that he wasn't in it more. He is pitch-perfect in his role as a flawed father to Rose and Nora. He and Adams have a particularly heart-wrenching scene late into the rising action, and it plays like a good cocktail in that its strength isn't fully felt until a little while later. Arkin also nails scenes with Jason Spevack, who plays Rose's young son. (Spevack and Abigail Breslin should get together for beers in about 40 years, and share glowing stories about their respective scenes with Alan Arkin.)

Amy Adams and Emily Blunt can do no wrong, as far as I'm concerned. They've both shown serious guts with their professional choices. Amy Adams managed to take all of the shrillness out of her role in Enchanted. Emily Blunt managed to inject delicious elitism into her role in The Jane Austen Book Club without being grating. I cannot wait to see what these two actresses do in the future. They're both approaching Laura Linney-caliber awesomeness. They share a scene in the climax of the story that manages to answer every question the audience has about the true character and limitations of both Rose and Nora. Adams and Blunt NAILED it. And that scene, which will not stop playing on a loop in my head!, isn't even the best either actress brings to the film. They each have quiet moments, without another actor off of whom to play, when it's just WOMAN and CAMERA...the indie-film gauntlet is thrown down, and it's make-it-or-break-it...and both turn in performances that could be instructional guides for the Megan Foxes and Alexis Bledels. Yes, that's right, girls: you don't have to sacrifice the pretty to bring out the big guns.

Note: I haven't written a movie review in a while. Pardon my lack of fluency in the form. And then go see Sunshine Cleaning.