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Making
It Better
By
Laura Leon
Sunshine
Cleaning
Directed
by Christine Jeffs
Usually,
housekeeping—OK, let’s be frank, domestic drudgery—is played
in movies as a means to a laugh, or possibly, a cover to a
crime. I think that the powers that be are so far removed
from the act of scrubbing and scouring that they can’t think
of it in any other terms. And yet, speaking as somebody who
loves cleaning house even as she resents the expectation that
she be the one doing it, there’s something cathartic
about setting things right, putting belongings in order and
achieving a spick-and-span glow to one’s environs. (Even if,
10 minutes later, it’s all for naught.)
In Sunshine Cleaning, plucky Rose (Amy Adams) cleans
for a living, and she’s good at it. Even so, it’s disconcerting
to her when she realizes that the person whose toilet she’s
just scrubbed is a high-school classmate she probably wouldn’t
have bothered with back in the day. That would have been when
she, Rose, was the cheerleading captain and girlfriend of
quarterback Mac (Steve Zahn). Fast forward to reality: Rose
is a single mom to Mac’s son Oscar (Jason Spevack); Mac, now
a cop, has gone on to marry someone named Heather, but he
still shacks up with Rose at a seedy motel. Rose clings to
the notion that someday she’ll have her real-estate license,
and bristles when Mac tips her off about the incredible money
to be made cleaning up after crime scenes.
“Is
that all you think I can do? Clean up other people’s shit?”
complains Rose.
Nevertheless, and considering she needs big money fast in
order to send precocious Oscar to a special school, she enlists
her slacker sister Norah (Emily Blunt) to assist her, and
the two go at it, like lambs to the slaughter—that is, the
site of the slaughter. Initially repulsed, Rose quickly gets
over her qualms, in large part because she’s the sort who
wants to clean up any mess in front of her (unless that mess
is her own life).
The previews play the movie for laughs (like when Norah falls
onto a bloody mattress); while there is much humor pulsating
through this movie, it’s also deeply moving and soulful. It’s
clear that some harrowing loss binds the sisters together,
even as that loss nearly defines who they are. Rose, good
at more than just the cleaning stuff, is tactful and understanding
when dealing with survivors, such as an elderly widow whose
husband killed himself before her bridge party. Norah, on
the other hand, reacts to the artifacts left behind that stand
testament to a life lived. One discovery leads her to befriend
Lynn (Mary Lynn Rajskub); the resulting relationship, though
founded on a lie, causes Norah to confront her meaningless
days.
Sunshine
Cleaning is not without faults. Alan Arkin is on hand
as grandpa Joe, and this movie having been made by the very
same folks who brought us Little Miss Sunshine, it’s
perhaps understandable that not only would they utilize the
same talent, but that they might try to channel the crazy
granddad shtick. He’s gruff but understanding with Oscar and
loving to his daughters. His failures as a salesman are mined
more for comedy than to lend any sort of understanding of
how Rose and Norah grew up. Not enough screen space is given
the wonderful Clifton Collins Jr., who plays Walter, a one-armed
dealer in cleaning supplies and equipment. The movie makes
out that Rose and Walter are losers, at least by today’s warped
standards, but they clearly are smart and capable, and blessed
with the grace to meet head-on any challenge that comes their
way and try to make it better.
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The
next big thing? Stewart in Adventureland.
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Winning
the Giant-Ass Panda
Adventureland
Directed
by Greg Mottola
James (Jesse Eisenberg) is a sensitive and romantic college
grad who has plans to spend the summer in Europe with a school
chum, but his summer abroad gets the kibosh when his father
is demoted. With a degree in literature and Renaissance studies,
James is forced to accept employment at a Pittsburgh amusement
park called Adventureland. As if being a park employee isn’t
embarrassing enough, James is placed behind a games counter,
which is lower than being a rides attendant. A parting gift
of a bag of weed from his chum quickly makes James popular
with the other employees, and compensates for his relative
lack of machismo. “I read poetry because I like to,” he confesses
to a friend who knows of James’ shameful “scarlet V” (for
virgin) status.
Written from his own experience by Greg Mottola, the director
of Superbad, Adventureland is a coming-of-age
story with likable, believable characters and enjoyable dialogue.
Told from the guys’ perspective, it’s less raunchy than Superbad
and centers on James’ relationship with Em (Kristen Stewart),
a troubled co-worker who parties instead of planning for college.
Though not as educated as James, she appreciates his literate
gallantry almost as much as his ganja. James and Em bond when
she comes to his rescue after an irate customer pulls a knife
to get a stuffed- animal prize. Together, they break one of
the park’s few employee rules: “Never give away the giant-ass
pandas.” The park’s petty corruptions provide amusing background
drama for the employees’ socio-romantic foibles.
Along with the soundtrack of ’80s new-wave hits, Mottola’s
uncontrived appreciation for nostalgia in cludes the sight
of 18-year-olds getting served in bars, and talking to each
other instead of their cellular gizmos. James innocently turns
to the suave Mike (Ryan Reynolds), a philandering, married
mechanic, for manly advice about a date with the park’s femme
fatale. Meanwhile, his games-counter cohort, Joel (Martin
Starr), struggles with being a gawky Jewish existentialist
pagan with a passion for Gogol. Among the park’s geek variants,
James at least has a naive confidence (Eisenberg is just as
good here as he was in The Squid and the Whale). And
that’s what makes Adventureland appealing: the personalities
of the teens and the actors who play them. Stewart just might
be the next big thing in beautiful young actresses who can
actually act, but everyone in Mottola’s midway-to-adulthood
is worth the ticket.
—Ann
Morrow
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