Back in the '50s and '60s, British cinema specialized in a brand of social realism known as kitchen-sink dramas that focused on marginalized blue-collar types. This hard slice of reality, however, is more a Styrofoam takeaway-container drama. There is the public transportation that never comes, the worry that a sudden illness will lead to an exorbitant emergency-room bill and the depressing dinginess of a dark bunker of a bar when the door opens and the sun streaks in briefly.
Outside, the handful of palm trees that interrupt the endless stretches of asphalt and concrete surfaces droop sadly and even the few exotic birds that venture by seem like they are asking for spare change. Inside, you can practically smell the sweat, tropical mold and stale cigarette fumes in the dumpy motel room that serves as Melissa and Richie's home base as she dresses in the dark for her job at a rundown convenience store (the Sunlight Jr. of the title).