Great movieby wazoo

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November 06, 2009: A real touching look at an american family with problems and regrets that are very hard to move on from.

Deceptive trailerby John_McKoy

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October 22, 2009: Have you ever seen a preview and thought, hey, that movie looks funny and light-hearted, and then rented it and thought, wow, that was really depressing and I want to blow my brains out? Well, those were pretty much exactly my thoughts about this movie.

I had seen the previews in the theatres expecting to see a funny movie about an odd-ball team of cleaners getting themselves in and out of crazy situations. This was not the case. Instead, I was met with an incredibly sad film characterized by depressing event after depressing event.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, sisters Nora and Rose Lorkowski are living mundane lives and going from job to job just getting by. Nora, played by Amy Adams, was the high school dream girl that every guy wanted but now is a single mother working as maid and in an affair with the former high school quarterback. Rose, played by Emily Blunt, is a pot-smoking, beer-drinking, jobless twenty something living in her father's house. Apparently these weren't the lives Nora and Rose had dreamed of, so they set out on an adventure to start their own cleaning business, cleaning out the gory remains at the scenes of fatal accidents and suicides. Ah, this sounds rather funny and unusual, you might think. But no. It just gets really depressing from here.

When they clean out these revolting scenes of terribly bloody suicides they start to reminisce about the suicide of their own mother. On some occasions they console loved ones of the victims which makes for a very sad movie. Also, Rose tries to contact a woman who's mother had killed herself to let her know the news about her mother, but instead, gets herself into a really weird lesbian relationship with the woman.

Adding to the weirdness of this film is Nora's son who keeps getting in trouble at school for doing things like licking the teacher's leg, and a one armed man who works at the cleaning supply store who befriends Rose and her son.

I did not get what I expected when I rented this movie. The only funny parts were when Rose and Nora would fight with each other spouting off funny combos of curse words. At points the film was touching, but for the most part it just made me sad. When Rose burned down a client's house and wrecked their cleaning business I felt like throwing a brick through my TV set out of pure grief. However, a slight bit of redemption came forth at the very end of the movie.

For this movie I would say, "Leave it alone. Get a shoot-em-up that won't disappoint." I was very pleased with Amy Adam's other films including the recent Julie and Julia, but I have to say this was a poor choice of film on her part. The acting was fine, but the overall plot and theme of the movie was rather dull and uninspiring. Lesson learned: don't judge a movie by its trailer.