Overture Films‘ Sunshine Cleaning is a quirky dark comedy of a single mom, Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams), trying to improve her life. After her son, Oscar (Jason Spevack), is kicked out of school, Rose is determined to earn the money to send him to private school. To afford this expensive endeavour, she starts a crime scene clean-up business, with her sister Norah (Emily Blunt), named Sunshine Cleaning. Rose has aspirations of a better life for her son, but she just can’t quite get it together. Sunshine Cleaning had the makings to be a hit, but just fell short of greatness. This film has a great cast and crew;  Christine Jeffs (Silvia) directs with producers, Marc Turtletaub and Peter Saraf (Little Miss Sunshine).

It is too easy to compare it to another movie  I’ll give you a hint, ‘sunshine’ is also in the title. Because ”Sunshine Cleaning” and “Little Miss Sunshine” share the same producers, many of aspects are carried over: “Sunshine” in the title, Albuquerque, and Alan Arkin. Although, I should not nail the producers for making a similar movie–um Judd Apatow, anyone?–I still couldn’t help myself and think that the movie will be like Little Miss Sunshine 2.  That said, I feel that Sunshine Cleaning seems to lack the “little-movie-that-could” essence and overall feel of its predecessor.

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