The Case for Death by Cleanliness

It is perhaps a bad sign of Readings arrogance now that it is the only real mainstream cinema on the inner Wellington block when the information board no longer tells you when movies are close to selling out, or indeed sold out, and upon learning that the movie you intended to see is sold out, you are required to descend down from the Candy Bar where the tickets are sold down to the ground floor where the actual movies and session times are advertised, just to return to the first floor once more once an alternate movie choice has been selected. Arrogance? Technical failure? We shall see what future movie screenings at Reading holds...

But, as mentioned (especially by the NotKate), when the plan to see District 9 fell through, one of my companions suggested the started-two-minutes ago movie Sunshine Cleaning. Luckily, Readings still has about 10 minutes of advertisements before the main feature starts, so we had plenty of time to get tickets and get to our seats and watch a few trailers for some Robert Downey Jr-starring features before the actual movie began.

Sunshine Cleaning comes from the same stable as Little Miss Sunshine (the title surely gives that away), and so, unsurprisingly, drips with sentimentality and quirkiness and Alan Arkin, playing the lovable off-kilter roguish grandparent of the previous film. Unlike Little Miss Sunshine though, this film is a lot more depressing. While Little Miss Sunshine had the odd moments of heartbreak (recall the teenage son realising he could not live his dream), Sunshine Cleaning wallows in melancholy. Amy Adams, as daughter number 1, used her clear, big, bambi-ish blue eyes to make me think she was either on the verge of bursting into tears or on the verge of bursting into Enchanted song, or perhaps a bit of both at the same time.

Amongst all the introspection and fond remembrances, there are many moments of humour and awkwardness, all familiar to those who would have seen Little Miss Sunshine. On the plus side, there is no quasi-paedophilia going on; on the down side, the film is close to being a complete downer. A wee smidgeon of hope and happiness finishes off the film, rescuing it from the wreckage of the lives of the Lorkowski family. It takes a bit of effort to realise the film is actually mainly amusing whimsy, so overwhelming is the negativity. The NotKate mentions many unexplored subplots, and she is utterly right - its just a pity that the potential romances and inspirational journeys of self discovery are left unexplored while the more gut-wrenching storylines make the final cut.

There is great news in that Mary Lynn Rajskub is in this film, though her character is not really given a huge amount to do, and her character's romance is again one of those that is brutally played just for ultimate tragedy.

However, while it was (in my opinion) a fairly doom and gloom flick, it did have some very good moments, and considering it was a "back up" film, I really will not complain. For all its moodiness, the performances are great, the characters have a hint of being almost real about them, and its a (mostly) understated comedy film, and that is a fairly rare breed these days.

Verdict: A lot of the Little Miss Sunshine formula fuels the Sunshine Cleaning machine, so it ends up feeling like a newer but not superior model of the original, though the original was fairly good, and this one isn't bad either. 6 biohazards out of 10.