Sunshine Cleaning – DVD Toss Up

Yes I am a year too late, but sometimes it takes me a while to see some movies because I, in my mind, debate about whether they interest me or not.

Sunshine Cleaning is one of those movies that you either like it very much or could care less about it. So I finally rented it and I must admit, it somewhat kept my attention. I only left my couch once to get a drink of water.

The story is about two sisters, a father and a troubled/or not kid and a few men here and there and alot of clean up after dead people. The story sounds familiar in most part, the only originality is cleaning up after dead people. As a result, you watch the movie bypassing the story and only wondering how on earth can anyone do that job? It’s kind of like watching a heavily scripted reality show.

Nice to note also that Alan Arkin, whom I love dearly, was able to copy/paste his role from Little Miss Sunshine to the role of the father in Sunshine Cleaning. Which means that if you liked his performance in the first movie, you would like it in the later as well.

Emily Blunt – again a wonderful actress seemed to have such a difficult time with suppressing her British accent that it effected her performance in my opinion. But none the less we got the just of her role as the confused/lost younger sister, who needed desperately to find herself and belong. She is tormented by the death of her mother, whom she doesn’t remember very well and as a result cannot get it together.

Amy Adams – seemed convincing enough and a bit dull in this role, but I suppose that was what her character called for. I was able to sympathise with her but didn’t like the fact she was a victim for the most part and wasn’t able to recognize that. What upset me the most was she gave up on the one thing that was working for her, the cleaning job, because she allowed her being a victim take over until of course her father had to come to her rescue.

Blunt’s role had more guts in that she was able to leave her nest and find a way to discover her true happiness while Adam’s role dwell and turned to others for help in order to make her life better.

The other characters somewhat just existed in this movie and didn’t do much as supporting actors. Overall, the movie is okay, it touched up on topics that are common in the American lifestyle so if you want to see on the screen what you already know or often run away from, then by all means be my guest. I am not saying I liked or disliked this movie, I just watched it for what it’s worth. Would I consider this movie memorable – absolutely NOT.