Sunshine Cleaning

Synopsis: Single mother Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams) works hard as a cleaning maid, while sister Norah (Emily Blunt) lives the life of a slacker at home with their salesman dad, Joe (Alan Arkin) who is always dreaming up hair-brained scheme and Rose’s son, Oscar (Jason Spevack), a problem kid at school. When Rose’s married policeman lover, Mac (Steve Zahn), suggests there is money to be made in crime-scene clean-ups, Rose persuades Norah to enter this new business with her.

Nominated (but not winning) the Grand Jury prize at Sundance, Sunshine Cleaning is a very cute film, part black comedy part dysfunctional family saga, that is perhaps overly sunny, given its subject matter.

I had some reservations at the level of plot. Given that bio-hazard clean-up is no doubt a highly-regulated business, the girls get into the business remarkably easily with absolutely no training and get away with hauling some very nasty material to the nearby neighbourhood dumpster. Sure, this is addressed when Winston (Clifton Collins Jr.), a one-armed proprietor of a shop specialising in cleaning equipment, tells them they need to get official accreditation, but it all feels a little tooooo convenient. Then there’s the problem of young Oscar – what sane person would actually take a child (especially after he’s ejected from school) to such a gory workplace?

This aside, there are plenty of funny moments in the story as girls try to overcome their feelings of revulsion at the sites they must clean.  This character-testing trial finds a very different kind of resonance when Rose, once an envied high school cheerleader, goes to a baby shower and we are party to a revolting but imaginative episode featuring nappies and chocolate. 

Under the surface laughs there is also a touching family story, dealing with the relationship between two very different sisters, and the two lead actors inhabit their characters extremely well.  Adams gives Rose a sweetness, underscored by both vulnerability and strength, while the increasingly impressive Blunt is convincing as the wastrel Norah, who delights in terrifying Oscar with horror tales when she babysits him and yet. for whom, as one expects, there is a deep sorrow for something in her past. Arkin seems to be getting typecast as the quirky grandpa à la Little Miss Sunshine) but he does it well, his Joe being both wryly funny and compassionate. Zahn, often employed for his humour, is strong as the pathetic lover, but the real standout for me is Clifton Collins Jnr (he played Perry in Capote) as Winston. This beautifully sympathetic character brings a refreshing difference to the potential of a romantic thread, and I would have liked to have seen this explored further, script-wise.

Of course the other theme flirted with (again not in enough detail for my taste) is that of what becomes of a person’s life after their death – the way one’s effects are carelessly tossed out, the grief of those confronting sudden and violent death, and simply the grief that most people carry for the loss of loved ones. As Rose says “We come into people’s lives when they experience something profound and sad and we help.”

I really enjoyed this film and loved the performances, but I was expecting more of New Zealand director Christine Jeffs whose best film to date, Rain (2001) had so much more depth and subtlety.

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