Period films often have a tendency to put a sepia filter onto its subjects, not really giving the attention to the issues that truly mattered at the time. In Parkland, it’s easy to forget that there were people who didn’t vote for Kennedy in 1961. Similarly, in A Royal Night Out, as charming as it was, it was difficult to remember that the entirety of London were not as transfixed with the monarchy as the film lead its audience to believe.
The films that I watched this week all had aspects of hindsight, to varying success, and the whole point of this exercise is to watch films I’ve never seen and better my knowledge of film. However, the heart wants what the heart wants and even though my heart is still bruised from the passing of David Bowie, my favourite film of this week will always be Sunshine Cleaning.
I have a very soft soft spot for indie films. Even when they are at their most twee and uninspiring (I’m looking at you, the entire genre of mumblecore), I still feel happy knowing that this film wasn’t conspired in a boardroom by an array of grayscale – white skin, grey suits, black credit cards – but by people who actually know cinema and stories and have actually been to see a movie in the past five years.
Sunshine Cleaning is a prime example of an indie film done well. A small budget - $8,000,000 – spent on good actors and a good crew with an excellent script is all you really need, as countless films have proven before. Could the budget have been smaller if they had hired less-known actors? Of course, but if you have the opportunity to spend that money on Adams, Arkin and Blunt, then why would you not? If you are a guitarist, and you have a bunch of money, you’re not going to buy a Strat copy, you will buy the Strat.
The story focuses on a single mother (Adams) who starts a business of cleaning the houses of the deceased to pay for her son’s private tuition – for good measure, her wayward sister (Blunt) joins in on the fun. Their already bristly relationship is put to the test by not only their professional incapacities but their own personal shortcomings. This is not unploughed terrain; pretty much every independent film deals with some form of familial strain, but the way in which Megan Holley writes these characters and their mundane lives is not saccharine or clichéd but with the precision of someone who knows how to write a flawed character through knowing them. Sunshine Cleaning doesn’t tie up the ends, but it doesn’t leave you out in the cold either – Holley and director Christine Jeffs are aware of why people spend their money at the IMAX and not the analogue picture house down the road.
 |
| Blunt, Adams and Jason Spevack in Sunshine Cleaning (2008) |
I love this film because not only is it from the same producers and angle as Little Miss Sunshine, but because it’s a film that deals with the uneducable past, the historical choices of others in which we are mere spectators reacting to their decisions. So often we see films about protagonists’ redemption and rise from the ashes of their own failures, and so it’s nice to see a story where in which no one is to blame and thus no one is truly unlikeable. Indie films don’t always have to be dark and miserable tomes of regret – they can just be vignettes of lives lived; not every film has to have a car chase and a rape scene.
Adams and Blunt have a winning chemistry playing screwed-up sisters, and the formidable Alan Arkin never lets a scene fall flat. Maybe these are the key criteria for a good independent film and maybe this is why good indie films are often hard to come by, unless you know where to look.
Films of the week: Kill Your Darlings, Labyrinth, Sunshine Cleaning, Down with Love, A Royal Night Out, Parkland
No comments:
Post a Comment