(Little Miss) SUNSHINE CLEANING
(Little Miss) SUNSHINE CLEANING
by Oscar Jubis
April 2009
The trailer for Sunshine Cleaning states that it's a film "from the producers of Little Miss Sunshine". The producers at Big Beach Films hit jackpot when that film, budgeted at a relatively modest $8 million, grossed $60 million not including lucrative foreign markets and DVD sales. Little Miss Sunshine received numerous awards including Oscars for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Alan Arkin. Roughly around the same time, the company produced Maggie Gyllenhaal's tour-de-force Sherrybaby, followed by Ramin Bahrani's wonderful Chop Shop. Neither film, particularly the latter, received the marketing and publicity required to compete with big budget films for the well-deserved attention of a general audience. The producers focused instead on replicating the success of the little dramedy that could.
There are many commonalities between Little Miss Sunshine and Sunshine Cleaning: both are based on scripts by debuting writers with stories revolving around barely functional Albuquerque families. Both have a cantankerous grandpa played by Alan Arkin and a cute but insecure kid, and both feature a van as a major prop. In both films, it's the principal cast providing most of the sunshine despite inconsistent scripts and indistinctive direction. I found awkward or contrived scenes in both films. For instance, it's hard to believe Greg Kinnear's uptight, abrasive dad would persuade a stranger to loan him his scooter in the middle of the night when not even own relatives (save little Olive) take him seriously. The scene exists for no other reason than to move the plot along. It's pat and convenient like Steve Carell's depressed uncle running into his ex-lover at a highway convenience store. Sunshine Cleaning has a deplorable scene in which a school principal decides to play doctor and dictates that Oscar needs to take meds then expels him from public school when his mom Rose (Amy Adams) refuses. The principal is a caricature almost as grotesque and contemptible as Little Miss Sunshine's grief counselor and contest director. Cardboard secondary characters designed as subjects worthy of nothing but contempt and derision, like many one finds in Brothers Coen movies, evidence a lack of imagination and generosity.
However, both films have their wonderful moments. In Sunshine Cleaning, I particularly liked the scenes set in hardware store involving the one-armed owner, Rose and Oscar, and the comic tension, often sexual tension, that develops between younger sister Norah and a phlebotomist who is also haunted by her mother's death. Both films give us the pleasure to watch Alan Arkin in the role that’s become his specialty: the gruff but lovable fuckup who knows exactly what his grandkid needs to hear. And both show that supportive, functional families can be formed by seriously flawed, troubled people.
What's wrong with Sunshine Cleaning is that it ignores its most interesting premise. When Rose tells Norah: "I'm good at getting guys to want me. Not date me, or marry me, but want me", I expected the film to build a narrative around her learning what she needs to do or think to change that situation. The film either ignores the issue altogether or implies that what's wrong with Rose is that she's a mere cleaning lady. Rose doesn’t have to learn anything other than how to be her own boss, the film appears to be saying. Despite winning performances, there's not much to Sunshine Cleaning that inspires or edifies the viewer. It feels inconsequential.
Little Miss Sunshine struck a chord with audiences by offering a corrective to the herd mentality of surrender to the cultural obsession with winning. The effort to measure up to a sanctioned definition of success is stifling and tiring. When Olive's family joins her on stage, Little Miss Sunshine shows the viewer how to dance to his own beat. And that feels liberating.
A Experiential Look At Sisters and Their Evolving Relationship
My IMDb review:
Quote:
Take Amy Adams ("Enchanted" 2007), Emily Blunt ("The Devil Wears Prada" 2006), Alan Arkin ("Little Miss Sunshine" 2006), and even Mary Lynn Rajskub ("24" television series 2003-2009) and the comedian actor Steve Zahn in a serious role and you have a rather interesting family drama that was billed more as a comedy. "Sunshine Cleaners" doesn't have the sparkle and delightful humor as "Little Miss Sunshine," instead this film captures more of a brief moment in time where by two sisters learn more about themselves and their relationship with each other. There aren't so much as explanations as experiences from which to learn from and nothing really turns out the way one might expect in this more realistic this-is-life perspective. The pacing of this movie is somewhat ragged and slow, particularly the first half of the movie. This movie provides no great insight, has a mild but solid twist at the end, and provides the audience with two decent human interest stories that reveal human development and human improvement over time. It's a positive if not stunning message about being human.
I didn't find it necessary that these two sisters had to necessarily find close to the predominate fixation America has on successful relationships with the opposite sex. It was sufficient that the relationship between Rose and Nora was explored to the extent presented. I enjoyed how Nora's relational situation played out. I even found the ending relational balance between Rose, Nora, and their father also somehow satsifying. Sometimes having pat, convenience answers to all these questions pushes one into fantasy dreaming expected of our movies. For me, it's the little steps, realistic steps of evolving reality that mean more for me. Like what was so special in
Lost in Translation (2003) wasn't any momentous changes in persons or situations, but the experience itself, like Chris Knipp's descent into experiencing New Mexico from the movie such that Sunshine Cleaning also excels in offering the viewer a slice of life experience that reveals the dynamics of familial relationships in a new and quirky way.
