Sunshine Cleaning Adventureland Among the things accomplished by Christine Jeffs's offbeat dramedy, Sunshine Cleaning, is to provide an answer to the question, "What kind of person takes a job cleaning up after suicides, murders and people with horrendously bad hygiene?" People who need money really badly and have grown accustomed to the presence of blood and guts in unusual places. The two Seattle women whose company provided the inspiration for Sunshine Cleaning may not be as cute as Amy Adams and Emily Blunt – how many waste-disposal experts are? – but their story provided a fascinating framework for a movie that finally collapses under its own emotional baggage. Adams plays an Albuquerque woman in desperate need of money to send her child to a school for special-needs children. (Actually, federal law requires school districts to cover those expenses, but who’s keeping score?) Her married lover, a police detective, encourages her to check out such work and she enlists her hapless sister (Blunt) to join her in the endeavor. They enter into the business completely clueless as to the rules, regulations and tools required to remove the toxic waste. The process of discovery is played for laughs and it mostly succeeds. The rest of the material, which presumably was invented by screenwriter Megan Holley, is larded with all the usual conflicts that affect characters in Sundance-bound indies. There's no arguing the quality of the performances, though. Besides Adams and Blunt, there are stand-out performances by Alan Arkin and Clifton Collins Jr. (Capote). The extras include an interview with the women whose experiences informed the film. Also emerging from Sundance 2009 was Greg Mottola’s coming-of-age dramedy, Adventureland. Here, Jesse Eisenberg played a college graduate forced by his parents’ precarious financial situation to spend the summer working at a crummy amusement park in Pittsburgh, instead of touring Europe, as planned. He’s not a happy camper, but, as usually happens, James finds kindred spirits among the staff and, together, they’re able to make the experience palatable. Kristen Stewart plays the fragile local girl who gives him someone with whom to spend meaningful time. Tonally, Adventureland falls somewhere between Mottola’s two previous features, the raucous Super Bad and quirky The Daytrippers. He has fun with pop-cultural references from the 1980s and some great period music. Added punch is supplied by Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Martin Starr and Ryan Reynolds. The Blu-ray edition adds a trio of featurettes, based on gags in the film, as well as deleted scenes, commentary and a making-of piece. – Gary Dretzka

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