Christine Jeffs movie is one that I really wanted to love and god knows I went in to it with a shit eating grin ready for something truly unique. Instead I was given something that fails to seize anything resembling an identity. Emily Blunt and Amy Adams are pretty darn good, even in a movie that’s pretty darn flawed. Blunt handles her American accent well and plays probably the most fascinating character in the bunch. She’s a slacker but is also fiercely devoted to her family. So devoted is she that she takes part in her sister’s cleaning business, a lucrative cleaning service that scrubs blood, limbs, and any other bodily fluid left behind in crime scenes. The two have a dynamic chemistry and that reflects on screen as a pure highlight.
They save what’s pretty much a bland affair and Megan Holley’s screenplay fleshes them out as three dimensional individuals with unresolved issues in their life and with one another. Blunt is the stand out and is perfectly cast as Norah, the young woman who sets out to redeem herself and a stranger’s bitter loss while always making any bad situation in to one that you’d be lucky to be apart of. The casting is almost excellent and in spite of being unable to sell the film, Jeffs and co. sell the principal cast pretty darn well. Channeling the same character from “Little Miss Sunshine,” Alan Alda leads what’s basically about the quirks of death and life and the problem is the writing never quite knows what to do with such complex emotions. Is it a quirky movie about eccentric people or is it a dramatic glimpse at how we deal with the death of loved ones and humanity?
The movie never quite knows how to tackle the material because it literally jumps all over the map with characters who vie to be taken seriously on screen when the script defies such goals to add a comedic twist. The problem is that it is at no time funny nor quirky and just teeters back and forth for the entire run time. I felt like I was watching two films the entire time and this leaves much of what happens with a confused tone that is never sure what it’s asking of its audience. We want to laugh at something but we’re instead given characterization filled with tragedy and loss and unresolved goals that keep it firmly near manipulative heart tugging. When we wait to understand where they’re coming from, Jeffs instead tries for philosophical and complex, emotions that don’t go too far and are instead simplified through a brutally trite obsession with CB Radios and heaven exemplified by young Oscar, a cliché character we’ve seen a thousand times.
He’s weird enough to fit in the dramedy niche but tragic enough to be tragic. It’s tough to find a single moment in here that isn’t filled with some self serving lesson on life and death and Jeffs simply doesn’t handle the material with the best of efficiency. I like dramedies, I think some of the best dramedies get its message across without leaving us feeling as if we’re being pushed back and forth between the various scenarios. Constantly tugging back and forth, “Sunshine Cleaning” is hit and miss and it misses quite often. It’s not the worst movie of 2009 but it’s certainly not the best either. Trying too hard to be quirky and original, “Sunshine Cleaning” is a hit and miss dramedy that doesn’t quite know what it’s saying about anything. Good thing Blunt and Adams make the experience worthwhile.