Sunshine Cleaning

Sunshine Cleaning is a nice little indie film starring some pretty big names - Amy Adams and Emily Blunt to name two. They play sisters who live small-town lives, not having made too much of themselves. Rose (Adams) is a former cheerleader and girl-most-likely who now works as a domestic cleaner to pay bills as a single mum, while Norah (Blunt) is an unemployed grunge girl who sneaks cigarettes and can't hold a job. When Rose's ex-boyfriend Mack (a police detective played by Steve Zahn) suggests crime-scene cleaning for some extra dough, the girls enter new territory. It's touching and funny at times to watch them struggle amateurishly in their new business, and there are some very poignant moments as their lives begin to move forward with some semblance of success.

Quite typically for an indie film, the plot is slow and more relationally-based than action-driven. The characters are quite well defined but could have been somewhat cliched if not for the acting, which was really good. It's always nice to see movies that celebrate the smallness in life (not its narrowness, but the small triumphs and victories) as well as the large things, and this one did that well. It's quite obviously geared towards the feel-good angle, and there's nothing wrong with that, but in pursuit of that ending, it becomes a little self-conscious.

Overall a gentle watch but not mandatory viewing.