Sunshine Cleaning: Critic Reviews

Truly lovely performances by Adams and Blunt pierce the thoroughly artificial climate.

A better title for the movie...would be Sundance Recycling, since the picture is less a free-standing independent film than a scrap-metal robot built after a shopping spree at the Park City Indie Parts and Salvage Warehouse.

A sweet and appealing, if familiar, concoction.

Sunshine Cleaning should have been a madcap comedy of the macabre, or a tangled yarn about the metaphorical biohazards of living life at the margins, but it shoots for the middle and ends up being just that: middling.

It's an honest little movie, well written by Megan Holley, well directed by Christine Jeffs, and very well played by Amy Adams and Emily Blunt as the sisters.

Yet another willful, comically tortured "indie" coated with Hollywood's happy-ending sheen.

Though this well-observed, wry drama is determined to be quirky, its most endearing quality, like that of its heroines, is a willingness to wallow in foul moods and come out the other side.

Though the script has its share of contrivances -- maybe more than its share -- the director and her co-stars, Amy Adams and Emily Blunt, bring a steadfast sense of truth to the story of two sisters trying to jump-start their stuck lives and grow up.

This one is scripted, directed and acted with grace and immaculate care.

Credit director Christine Jeffs and writer Megan Holley with revealing the sisters' pained back story ever so gently.

Adams, forging ahead gamely, keeps it aloft.

At times, the movie works, but those are the times it (and even we) forget what it's really about.

Certain narrative events in Sunshine Cleaning%u2014a fire, for one%u2014are more about dramatic convenience than the mess of real life. It helps to have actresses as vibrant as Adams and Blunt around.

Taken on its own terms, though, it's a solid indie effort with plenty of nice character strokes by screenwriter Megan Holley and razor-sharp performances by Amy Adams and Emily Blunt.

Christine Jeffs has assembled an accomplished cast for the dramedy from screenwriter Megan Holley. They are wonderful in a film that reverberates with the tensions and comic desperation of the similarly themed Little Miss Sunshine.

There should be a self-healing book for film performers titled "When Bad Scripts Happen to Good Actors." And the cast of Sunshine Cleaning should get a group discount.

Lifted by a trio of fine performances, Sunshine Cleaning thrives on the unexpected and revels in the low-key.

Not a great movie, but disarmingly entertaining -- especially when you have to rub your eyes to believe what you're seeing (or cover them to avoid what you're not seeing).

Sunshine Cleaning is made of sterner stuff than the usual chick flick, and is well worth the time of all serious moviegoers.

This bittersweet comedy is a fine showcase for a pair of distinctive and appealing talents.

The irrepressible Adams puts a sunny face on a life that hasn't worked out, but that's worth the struggle in spite of it all.

Adams and Blunt rise above the clunky premise and execution to once again demonstrate why they've become the go-to girls for any director seeking smart, versatile and warm-blooded talent.

Sunshine Cleaning is one of those dependent independent films -- dependent on the need to be "quirky" yet "heartfelt" too, and as much a slave to the formulaic as any Hollywood product.

Although Adams and Blunt work hard at giving dimension to their characters, they can't overcome the fact that the story is essentially a greatest hits of family trauma.