SUNSHINE CLEANING

Otherwise known as LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE: REDUX.*

A cute, little tale about a single mom and her troubled sister who both, along with their aging and addled father, try to keep life in check. Our key players are Rose (Amy Adams), Norah (Emily Blunt) and Joe (Alan Arkin). Together they raise Rose's son, Oscar (the adorable and ridiculously busy Jason Spevack), because, you know, it takes a village.

The three are still living in the aftershock of Joe's wife committing suicide some twenty years earlier, and their lives are in a permanent funk. Still living in their hometown, Rose works as a maid, Norah works to keep a job--any job--and Joe dreams up hair-brained, get-rich-quick schemes that all inadvertently fail. They're as American as the cast of lovable losers in LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, and that's this movie's strength. It's almost the same film. Hello, the word "sunshine" is in the title.

I never wrote about LITTLE MISS when I saw it in Paris, but I really liked that film; it was simple and just as special as everyone let on. I don't know what others say they loved about it, but me, it wasn't so much the story. It was the American-ness, that thick and heady middle class soot that oozed out of every scene. From the moment Toni Collette drops the bucket of KFC chicken on the table about three minutes in and announces that dinner is "ready," the American Studies major in me went berserk. I was in it. And even though Paul Dano's character got more normal and the plot a little less remarkable as the film went on, I had to appreciate how this film completely encompassed everything about America that you could love, hate or disinterestedly observe in such an accurate way.

Now, SUNSHINE CLEANING, though a reprisal of the theme, lacked that ooze. It was American, small-town American, but there was a little bit of melodrama and more than a little bit of unfinished character development. Our actors were great, though. Alan Arkin does a great Alan Arkin. And Emily Blunt a great dispassionate American girl in her mid-20s. And this is the first film in which I've really loved Amy Adams. Like--don't get me wrong--I like Amy Adams a lot. I like the idea of her. But having only seen MISS PETTIGREW and DOUBT, I know I haven't seen her best work. SUNSHINE CLEANING must definitely rank up there. She was the star of this film for me, and I'm so glad she was cast as Rose; she really owned it. Though I'll tell you what--for a single mother, Rose looked maaaaybe a bit too good. Better than all her high school friends, that's for sure. Times might be hard for her, but time has been harder on their hips. Then again, those women can shove it.

plot: Cleaning up houses and lives.
thought: Working at two hard jobs.
in five: 3.5/5

a little sunshine: http://www.sunshinecleaning-themovie.com/

*=This is post #200. Huzzah!