Wonderful Sunshine Cleaning a Killer Comedy
Rose Lorkowski (Oscar-nominee Amy Adams) and her slacker sister Norah (Emily Blunt) are idling on neutral. While the former is barely making ends meet as a pink-clad maid, the latter can barely hold on to a series of service jobs thanks to her prickly demeanor and her inability to keep track of time. The two need to find a direction to their lives, a sense of purpose that will help them get out of their rut and provide a source of constant income.
Emily Blunt and Amy Adams in Overture Films' Sunshine Cleaning
Inspiration comes when Rose’s married boyfriend (and former High School beau) and local police detective Mac (Steve Zahn) tells her she should open up her own cleaning business, the guys who take care of dealing with the bloody aftermath of crime scenes making serious dollars doing it. The frazzled single mother takes this suggestion and runs with it, enlisting Norah as her partner in the process.
Soon the two find the business of cleaning up after death to be a lucrative one, their easygoing father Joe (Oscar-winner Alan Arkin) impressed by his daughters’ wherewithal and fortitude. But things don’t always go so smoothly, and whether it is Rose’s depression of not living up to her glory days as head High School cheerleader or Norah’s lack of focus tied to painful memories of their mother’s death these two need to find a way to pull it all together or all their dreams for the future might just vanish in a could of smoke.
I loved Sunshine Cleaning. Received to lukewarm applause at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, this slight familial comedic melodrama is a solid story told very, very well. Director Christine Jeffs (Sylvia) makes fine use of writer Megan Holley economical (if over-familiar) screenplay, using a subtle hand to guide things along their hugely enjoyable way. This is a movie that, even with the slightly lurid nature of some of the subject matter, is as endearing and loveable as these things get, the finished product so much fun to watch I really didn’t want it to end.
Without question, the key here is that Adams and Blunt are more or less spectacular. These two take their characters and run with them, doing things with the women that are blissfully sublime. Whether it is Rose engaging in a delicate courtship with a one-armed small business owner (Clifton Collins Jr.) or Norah stalking the estranged daughter (Mary Lynn Rajskub) of one of her clean-up subjects every move the pair makes is perfect. It is impossible to imagine the film without them, both actresses delivering performances arguably as good as any they’ve ever given (including Adams' unforgettable work in Doubt and Junebug).
Are their hiccups? Sure, I guess so. I could probably say I wish more had been done with Arkin, much of what he does feeling a bit too reminiscent of his award-winning work in Little Miss Sunshine. I also didn’t necessarily feel like Rose and Mac’s relationship came out quite like I felt it should have, if anything it is rather anticlimactic.
As far as complaints go, however, that’s about it. More, it wasn’t until long after the movie that I even thought of them. While it was running everything else going on was so rapturously involving, so movingly emotional and alive, so nicely textured and intoxicating problems of any sort didn’t color my enjoyment one little bit. Jeffs smoothes over the rougher patches with confident ease, and with a cast as wonderful as this she gets plenty of help doing it.
Will a movie like Sunshine Cleaning change my life? No, of course not, but when they are as good and as entertaining as this I could truly care less. This is the type of film that makes me feel outstanding and reminds me why I love what I get to do for a living, and as far as statements of support go I can’t think of a better one to end things on than that.
Film Rating: êêê1/2 (out of 4)
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