Susan Granger’s review of “Sunshine Cleaning” (Overture Films)
If “Sunshine Cleaning” bears more than a slight resemblance to “Little Miss Sunshine” (2006), it’s not surprising. Not only are the titles similar but so is the setting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where there’s a fragile, multi-generational dysfunctional family with a grumpy grandpa played by Alan Arkin.
On the other hand, this quirky scenario begins with a man walking into a sporting goods store, loading a shotgun and blowing his head off. So it’s not exactly a comedy.
There are these two underachieving sisters who are struggling to stay afloat in a sinking economy, a theme that’s even more relevant now than at last year’s Sundance, where the movie opened.
Optimistic Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams) is a former head cheerleader/high-school beauty queen who’s barely making ends meet as a thirtysomething single mom with a troubled eight year-old son, Oscar (Jason Spevack), whose father fled years ago. She’s having a dead-end affair with her ex-boyfriend/football star, Mac (Steve Zahn), now a married police detective, and scrubbing the houses of classmates she used to snub. So when Mac mentions to Rose that there’s substantial money to be made in mopping up blood-splattered crime scenes and toxic biohazard sites after the CSI guys leave, she earnestly goes into that messy, morbid business, recruiting her morose, grotesquely Goth younger sister, Norah (Emily Blunt), who’s far less enthused until she hooks up with the daughter (Mary Lynn Rajskub) of one of the victims..
“We come into people’s lives when they’ve experienced something profound and sad. They’ve lost somebody, and we help,” Rose explains. “And it’s a growth industry.”
And her life takes an unexpected turn when she meets a gentle, one-armed cleaning-supply salesman (Clifton Collins Jr.).
Wryly written by Megan Holley and directed with a savvy, if meandering nonchalance by New Zealander Christina Jeffs (“Sylvia”), the often-melodramatic serio-comedy is dominated by compelling performances from Amy Adams (“Doubt,” “Enchanted”) and Emily Blunt (“The Devil Wears Prada”). On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Sunshine Cleaning” is a gently ghoulish, bittersweet 7. Talk about dirty work!
