Rose(Amy Adams,a radiant beauty with real emotions,which is more rare than you might think in this business)has been a dutiful sister,daughter and mother,working as a maid to earn enough to keep her son in school,support her dad(Alan Arkin,good as usual in a role that looks a little TOO familiar),a widowed one-time businessman turned amateur schemer,and sister Norah(Emily Blunt,a real 180 from her part in shows like The Devil Wears Prada),a highly emotional,potential unstable yet genuinely empathetic young woman who has trouble keeping work and appears to be partying her life away. On an off-hand tip by the married cop she's been having an affair with(Steve Zahn,looking much older than I'm used to seeing),she decides to set up a business cleaning up messy crime scenes,which seem to be in bumper crop season in and around the Albequerque area. Of course,it turns out that she(and certainly not her sister,who she employs out of self-duty,among other things)is not as cut out for the work of cleaning up grisly scenes that are fraught with shattered human lives,that a number of which seem to have some echo on the histories of both women.
Sometimes TOO relaxed direction by nearly brand-new filmmaker Christine Jeffs,off a script by Megan Holley,this story REALLY runs on the charm and unforced character strength of the actors in their parts,from Adams and Blunt,on down through Arkin,the son(whose name immediately escapes me),Zahn and Clifton Collins as the pleasant,laid-back one-armed supply store manager who develops and friendship(and maybe more)with Rose. While a wee bit unfocused and maybe forced in plot concoctions--an uneasy possible romance between Norah and a repressed Blood bank worker(Mary Lynn Rajskub)seems to be not quite fitting comfortably with the show's flow--it's still a very touching and easy serio-comedy that is neither schmaltzy nor detached. A better rent than a big ticket view,it's a story worth a look-see. Recommended.
Sometimes TOO relaxed direction by nearly brand-new filmmaker Christine Jeffs,off a script by Megan Holley,this story REALLY runs on the charm and unforced character strength of the actors in their parts,from Adams and Blunt,on down through Arkin,the son(whose name immediately escapes me),Zahn and Clifton Collins as the pleasant,laid-back one-armed supply store manager who develops and friendship(and maybe more)with Rose. While a wee bit unfocused and maybe forced in plot concoctions--an uneasy possible romance between Norah and a repressed Blood bank worker(Mary Lynn Rajskub)seems to be not quite fitting comfortably with the show's flow--it's still a very touching and easy serio-comedy that is neither schmaltzy nor detached. A better rent than a big ticket view,it's a story worth a look-see. Recommended.