SUNSHINE CLEANING - shameless cash-in

SUNSHINE CLEANING is a worthless film. The script is derivative, the tone mis-judged and the execution poor.

Essentially, the film is a shameless attempt to cash-in on the sleeper-success of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE by recasting its characters in another setting. Once again we have a family beset by financial crisis and suburban failure. Admittedly, instead of a married couple we have two sisters – one, a high school sweetheart turned mistress and cleaner – the other a troubled college drop-out. But, in LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE style, we have a central relationship between an eccentric grandfather and an eccentric grandchild. The plot, such as it is, consists of the two sisters setting a crime-scene clean-up business in order to finance the kid’s private education.

The tone of the film also attempts to ape the black comedy of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE but the script isn’t funny enough for that. Rather, we get a poor attempt to make a light-hearted film about painful subject matter – suicide, drug use and failure.

Finally, there are the difficulties with the execution. Amy Adams is cast as the older sister, but looks and plays younger than Emily Blunt. Emily Blunt’s accent is unsure. And casting Alan Arkin as the eccentric grandfather only confirms the movie’s attempt to capture the same tone as LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. Technically, the film suffers from a muddy colour palette and uninspired camera-work, relieved only by two exceedingly clumsy pastiche slow-mo shots of the two sisters at the start of the film, in the style of Wes Anderson.

SUNSHINE CLEANING played Sundance 2008 and was released last year in the US. It was released earlier this year in Canada, Sweden, Israel, Greece, the Netherlands and Germany. It is currently on release in Belgium, France, Australia, South Africa and the UK. It opens next week in Denmark, the following week in Singapore and Japan and on August 6th in New Zealand.

Overlooked DVD of the month - THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB

THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB is remarkably like a Jane Austen novel. It's peopled with a group of women searching for love. Althought the women face obstacles, not least their own inability to see love when it's staring them in the face, everything ends happily and order is restored. The entire process is charming and witty and involving and entirely harmless. The ensemble cast do a great job. I particularly liked Hugh Dancy is his role as a relentlessly optimistic IT-geek called Grigg. I've never been particularly impressed by Dancy before but he utterly won me over with his performance in a role which is hard to take seriously. He makes Grigg more than just a two-dimensional nice guy. The upshot is that I finished the movie in a sunny mood entirely at odds with my usual callous, cyncical demeanour.

Once the optimistic glow had subsided, my usual cynicism kicked in and the house of cards collapsed. The whole movie was contrived from top to bottom. The idea is that five women and one man meet once a month and discuss one of Austen's novels. Such is Austen's universal wit and wisdom that they can draw piquant life lessons from her novels and apply them to their own lives in contemporary California. Problem is that a lot of the lessons seem misapplied, or stretched to say the least.

Consider PERSUASION - a wonderful novel about second chances. The lessons are applied to Prudie and Dean. Prudie has delusions of a Left-Bank life; Dean is a neanderthal. Apparently having him read PERSUASION will lead to a rekindling of their romance. Sorry. Not buying it. The whole set up of the film is that they are congenitally unsuited. Reading a novel won't change that. And what about the relationship at the core of the film - between a repressed older woman, Jocelyn, and the younger man determined to win her love - Grigg. Apart from the completely predictable way in which they come together, I really hated the fact that the reasons for Joceyln to be so closed off were never explained. This made it hard to sympathise with her. She just seemed mean.

Apparently these issues are dealt with at more length in the novel and I look forward to reading it. And I suppose any movie can't be all bad if it makes you want to spend more time with its characters....?

THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB played Toronto 2007 and was released last year. It's now available on DVD.