Sunshine Cleaning, a film I gathered by the poster alone to be some hilarious breezy black comedy about two chicks who accidentally kill someone and have to hide the evidence.
Of course the poster was half there, but my imagination kinda went further, as the film is in actual fact about Amy Adams' single mother needing money to get her kid into a good school after being kicked out of his old one, and getting into cleaning crime scenes for big money due to her affair with married high school sweetheart Steve Zahn.
She and her sister Emily Blunt go and do that, whilst the kid is looked after by grandfather Alan Arkin, typecast much?
So there's highs and lows, quirky moments, but overall it's a solid but lacking comedy drama with lots of moments that as a whole need more time to really sink in, and being just about 90 minutes long, it's one of those indie films that gets so close, but bottles it and has a lacklustre sudden ending as opposed to a solid finale that reaches highs the film needs to go to be truly memorable.
The film hasn't got anything new aesthetically, tonally, the acting is as solid as you'd expect from the cast, but it really never breaks through a mediocre bar, and there's nothing especially funny in it. A subplot involving 24's Mary Lynn Rajskub falling in love with Emily Blunt is given no real time, especially with the addition of possible boyfriend Eric Christian Olsen, who has about two scenes barely being there.
Can't complain as it's got enough quirk and heart to keep it going, but little of anything amazing.
8/10
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