MESSAGE IN THE MOVIES

Sunshine Cleaning Rated R

Directed by Christine Jeffs.  Starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt.



Photo © Overture Films
Movie Review by Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader

Sunshine Cleaning is an independent film with an A-list cast.  Many American independent movies offer quirky characters involved in offbeat situations, and Sunshine Cleaning certainly provides all of that and more. 

Rose (Adams) and Norah (Blunt) are two sisters in their late 20s who both live in Albuquerque, New Mexico and keep in regular contact with one another if only to commiserate about how messed up their lives have become. 

Rose is a single parent and freelance housecleaner whose 7-year old son Oscar (Jason Spevack) is always doing something at school to send him to the principal’s office.  Rose is also having an affair with Mac, a police detective and former high school boyfriend (Steve Zahn) who married a classmate years ago.  Norah is a free spirit who hasn’t figured out what to do with her life, but she is always available to babysit Oscar and fill his head with upsetting bedtime stories. 

Their widowed father Joe (Alan Arkin) also lives in town and is involved with small business ventures (including regional sales for a popcorn candy and selling fresh shrimp out of the back seat of his car. 

But their luck is about to change.  Mac mentions to Rose that there’s a lot of money to be made in companies who clean up biohazard material (i.e. blood, garbage and bodily fluids) from crime scenes.  So Rose and Norah decide to get into the business, launch “Sunshine Cleaners” and begin a series of episodes – both comic and tragic – that will test their love for one another and bring up a few ghosts from the past. 

This is not a film for all tastes, and I must confess that the black humor and sunny disposition of the main characters seemed to be a bit of a mismatch. However (getting back to the A-list talent here), great acting and assured direction can sell the flimsiest of plots, and the entire cast gives their utmost to this film, making it a very enjoyable and entertaining 90 minutes.  In addition to the cast members already mentioned, Mary Lynn Rajskub gives a heartfelt and heartbreaking performance as a young daughter of a crime victim. 

Like 2007’s Little Miss Sunshine, Sunshine Cleaners features a cast of characters who are, in many ways, damaged goods.  But, through it all, love comes through.  Although God is not mentioned much in this film, a peculiar kind of grace makes an appearance, along with forgiveness and repentance.  Look at it this way – compared to this family, even yours will seem to be moving in a healthy direction!

Pitchfork Rating:
Two halos Excellent acting, interesting characters and new beginnings enliven this engaging comedy-drama. Three pitchforks Grisly crime scene images, some swearing, brief scenes of recreational drugs and recreational sex, rear male nudity.

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