by James Gapinski

Created on: March 29, 2009

Sunshine Cleaning was nominated at the Sundance Film Festival, and opened to much anticipation among indie film lovers. The premise is simple: two sisters go into business as crime scene cleaners to make extra money and sort out their lives. Amid this simple plot, the characters evolve as interesting, idiosyncratic figures with a plethora of real-life problems. To this end, the film did not disappoint.

Somewhat familiar with leading lady Amy Adams' career, I wasn't sure how she'd do in her role as a darkly comic single mother intent on stabilizing her life, and that of her father, sister, and son. But, as in past instances, she surprises the audience with a brilliant portrayal. Her character, Rose Lorkowski, is likable, relatable, down-to-earth, and ultimately believable. The role is one which transcends the screen, making the movie patron forget, if only for an instance, that the emotional roller coaster of Sunshine Cleaning is merely that of a movie. The portrayal is artful, demonstrating Adams' range and potential as an up-and-coming actress with a bright future ahead of her.

Co-star Emily Blunt also fills her role well. Her character is composed of subtle layers. The motives of Emily Blunt's character, Norah, are not always entirely clear through dialogue, but her actions, expressions, and general persona give the role color and depth. She offers a complexly perfect level of yang to Adams' ying. The two mesh on screen as natural sister figures.

Mastering the role of a loving, yet quirkily flawed grandfather, Alan Arkin also has powerful screen presence. As does Jason Spevack, the film's main child actor. He is a unique boy with a very specific on-screen persona, lending itself perfectly to the role of Oscar, an eccentric child.

The only acting flub came from Steve Zahn. His character, Mac, is a bit lost in rather generic expressions with few emotional flares. The character becomes a baseline, with neutral screen presence, whereas Mac ought to be a more central source of conflict for Adams' Rose. In a more serious role, Steve Zahn fails to impress.

Overall, the film is not tarnished by the mediocre performance of Zahn. The presence of Adams and Blunt more than makes up for the deficit. Furthermore, the film's plot progresses well, opting for twists that go beyond the expected dynamic of such a flick. The obvious plot progressions are avoided, and obscure ones are pursued, leaving the viewer with nonstop surprises and delight throughout the movie. The ending was a bit too neatly packaged, yet it did little to diminish the hour and a half of impressive scripting that preceded it. Furthermore, the director offered some modern framing techniques and the soundtrack appropriately complimented what was on-screen, leading to a complete package for Sunshine Cleaning. Overall, the film gets a solid 9 out of 10. This score teeters on the brink of a perfect 10, yet the film's few small missteps make me hesitate at the thought of affixing a perfect scoreeither way, Sunshine Cleaning is a must-see.

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