Thirtyish sisters, down but not entirely out in Albuquerque, New Mexico, go into business cleaning up hazardous waste after suicides and more accidental messes. The plot is thin and the dialogue sometimes embarrassingly bad, as when one sister, having suffered a humiliation at the home of a more "successful" high-school classmate, is told by the other: "You're better than them." There's more not to like:
- Supporting characters, such as a one-armed shopkeeper and the sisters' gruffly likable father, who are too plainly intended as "lovable eccentrics."
- Throwaway emotion elicited by the plight and wonderings of a boy, the son of one of the sisters, who turns eight just before the touching resolution of the implausible plot.
- A sort of pat psychological undertone when it develops that the young businesswomen, who clean up the physical messes made by suicides, are themselves messes on account of the suicide of their own mother while they were still young enough to frolic, in slow-motion flashbacks, in a lawn sprinkler.
And yet: I liked it, quite a lot. There is a scene wherein the young entrepreneurs buy a (very) used van from a paunchy, pasty car salesman who with friendly nonchalance declines to budge on the price. He doesn't look like his customers, except inasmuch as he qualifies as another unexceptional American struggling to earn a living--a rare sight at the movies.
Directed by Christine Jeffs (Sylvia) and featuring Amy Adams (Doubt) and Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada), as the sisters.
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