Sunshine Cleaning

This weekend I saw the film Sunshine Cleaning, starring Amy Adams and Alan Arkin (always good) about a crime-scene cleanup crew. The lead, Adams, plays a cleaning lady who decides to go into business with her sister, cleaning up the blood and other things after a death/suicide/murder. The movie had an interesting premise but on a whole, the film experience was rather unsatisfying. Of course, like many of similar films, the movie had an independent feel, but many times throughout the film it was trying to hard and failed in many attempts.

The characters, for the most part, were not very relatable and you never really came to like any of the characters or feel connected to them. It was an odd story about odd people that could have been very good, but was not, and its subject matter was rather unpleasant.

The strongest component of the film, something I would have never seen two months ago, was its ambiguous, moral message, namely of the debate between the idea of existienialism and faith or religion. The different characters embodied the different philosophies but showed both of the sides very interestingly, and definitely with great subtlety. Not until after the film was over, when I was thinking about it did I realize that it was portraying an ambiguous message, and because of that I began to realize that it was a deeper film and not as disappointing as I originally thought.

The movie was not great by any means, but it was also not terrible. It did receive much critical praise and film festival awards, so it is possible that I missed something. Although, sometimes film festival winners are not for the mainstream audience. I would not totally disregard this film, but I would also tell you that it is not necessary to seek out this film. When it comes to DVD, it may be an interesting one to watch but it is certainly not worth searching for.

I will give it a slight recommendation because of its themes and deeper purpose, especially with the aims of the film class, but on a whole, I expected more from some great actors such as Arkin and Adams, and such an interesting and new premise as this.