christine jeffs Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's hard to believe it was just last month that the film industry was trudging through hill, dale and snow to watch movies at the Sundance Film Festival, but in this fast-paced world, it does feel like a million years ago. One of the buzz titles at the fest was Christine Jeffs' Sunshine Cleaning, a tale of two sisters that start a business tidying up crime scenes. Our own Kim Voynar felt it wasn't the best film she saw at Sundance, "but it certainly wasn't the worst. It does have its flaws, but overall it's a cute film that fans of [Amy] Adams and [Emily] Blunt will enjoy."

Indeed, with the very talented and attractive Adams (Junebug, Enchanted) and Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada, The Wolf Man) in the lead roles and Alan Arkin providing support as their scheming father, how did this film fail to get picked up during Sundance? Anne Thompson of Variety notes that Sunshine Cleaning "entered the fest as one of several highly anticipated movies with stars attached that were expected to make a big sale. It didn't happen, though, partly because the filmmakers behind the film, Big Beach ... were hoping to make back their $7-million investment in a quick sale."

Ms. Thompson reports, however, that Overture Films has now acquired the film and plans to release it at the end of the year. The distributor may change the title, though, perhaps concerned that it might be considered too similar to 2006 indie smash hit Little Miss Sunshine, for which Arkin won an Academy Award.

It's not a bad idea for an indie film: Two sisters, still dealing as adults with the aftermath of their mother's suicide when they were children, are stuck in dead-end jobs. Then one of them gets the idea to stop cleaning rich people's houses for a living, and to start a business cleaning up crime scenes instead. That's the basic idea behind Christine Jeffs' Sunshine Cleaning, starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin.

Adams plays Rose, head cheerleader back in the glory days of high school, now stuck raising her son Oscar (Jason Spevack) alone. Rose cleans houses for a living, a job she's not crazy about, and she's having an affair with her high school boyfriend, Mac (Steve Zahn), who likes Rose enough to have sex on the side, but not enough to leave his wife for her. Her sister Norah (Blunt) lives with their father Joe (Arkin), who's always got a scheme going for finally getting rich. When Oscar keeps getting in trouble in school, Rose decides she needs to make more money so she can put him in private school, and cleaning houses for a living isn't going to get her there.

I'm not sure what it is about sunshine and cleaning, but the two have been all over movie titles as of late. Last year we had Little Miss Sunshine and Code Name: The Cleaner, and in 2007 we're looking at a film called Sunshine from Danny Boyle, another simply called Cleaner (which stars Samuel L. Jackson) and one that combines both, Sunshine Cleaning, starring Emily Blunt, Amy Adams and the newly casted Mary Lynn Rajskub (best known for her role as Chloe O'Brian on Fox's hit show 24.) Both Cleaner and Sunshine Cleaning focus on characters who clean up crime scenes, though the latter seems a bit more interesting ... to this guy, at least.

In Sunshine Cleaning, Adams and Blunt play sisters who clean crime scenes for a living and, in the process, somehow learn the meaning of life. Sounds sort of cheesy until I tell you that Rajskub will play a blood bank technician who's the object of Blunt's sexual obsession. (Yeah, that little plot point completely caught me off guard too.) I should also note that Alan Arkin snagged a role, which makes this his second Sunshine-related indie comedy in two years; pic was written by Megan Holley and will be directed by Christine Jeffs. No word on a release date, but Sunshine Cleaning is currently sweeping up the streets of Albuqerque, New Mexico.