”
Sunshine Cleaning
”
starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin
Not many people could walk into a room where a decomposing body
has been, and smile at the prospect of cleaning up the mess left
behind. But that is exactly what Rose Lorkowski does in
”
Sunshine Cleaning
”
when she gets her first job in biohazard removal/crime scene
clean-up. And not many actresses could have pulled off the role of
Rose, who is strong in the strangest of situations, but crumbles on
the verge of tears in many others. Amy Adams is one of the few who
could manage the delicate balance required. She has just the sweet,
innocent look of someone who could be as na
ïve as Rose.
“Sunshine Cleaning” starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin
Not many people could walk into a room where a decomposing body has been, and smile at the prospect of cleaning up the mess left behind. But that is exactly what Rose Lorkowski does in “Sunshine Cleaning” when she gets her first job in biohazard removal/crime scene clean-up. And not many actresses could have pulled off the role of Rose, who is strong in the strangest of situations, but crumbles on the verge of tears in many others. Amy Adams is one of the few who could manage the delicate balance required. She has just the sweet, innocent look of someone who could be as naïve as Rose.
Rose is a single mother who seems to have gotten stuck. Screenwriter Megan Holley and director Christine Jeffs are slow to reveal just how Rose ended up where she is. We get bits and pieces about Rose and her relatives, as they interact with other characters, but it is not until near the end that all their history comes spilling out.
Rose works as a maid for wealthy people near and cares for her son Oscar, with some help from her unreliable sister Norah (Emily Blunt) and her father Joe (Alan Arkin), who is always working on a get-rich-quick scheme.
The only time Rose takes for herself is one night a week when she says she is taking real estate classes. In reality, she sneaks off to spend a few hours with a married man she is dating.
When 8-year-old Oscar gets in trouble at school for licking things – walls, chalk boards, the teacher’s leg – administrators tell Rose to put him on medication. This is one of the first moments in the movie where Rose’s eyes tear up, but she takes a moment to compose herself and keeps from crying. She decides she needs to find a way to put him in a private school that will be more accepting of his unique personality, but money is an issue.
Mac (Steve Zahn), Rose’s married boyfriend, is the one who comes up with the idea for her new job. He works as a detective. When responding to a suicide call, he over hears that a clean-up crew is charging $3,000. Since Rose is already cleaning up messes for a living, he suggests she get in on the racket. He can even tip her off to some jobs.
Rose enlists her sister Norah, who has recently lost a job as a waitress, to be her partner in crime. Norah doesn’t have quite as strong a stomach as Rose does for the job, but she helps her out anyway. It’s clear they don’t really know what they are doing from the start. They enter the contaminated rooms in jeans and t-shirts, and tie flannels around their noses to lessen the stench. They carry bloody mattresses out to Dumpsters and they use household cleaning supplies to wash off body fluids.
At the beginning of her new career, Rose is doing it to pay for private school, and possibly to prove to old high school friends and to Mac that she can be more than a maid. But soon Rose genuinely seems to feel that she is offering an important service to families who have lost a loved one.
The concept of the movie may seem macabre, but it definitely has its funny and moving moments. The actors all seem comfortable in the roles, and the characters hold up throughout the entire movie.
Alan Arkin plays a role not so different from the one he took on a few years ago in “Little Miss Sunshine.” He is a grandfather who fiercely loves his grandchild. In “Little Miss Sunshine,” Grandpa Edwin seems to be the only person who believes Olive is beautiful. And in “Sunshine Cleaning,” when Oscar says teachers think he is stupid, Joe says with all his conviction that the little boy is a genius. Arkin plays the role of Joe as a man who loves his family, but can’t always seem to do the right thing.
Emily Blunt, too, does a good job of playing the tough-as-nails Norah who really is vulnerable underneath her façade. Norah faces her own personal tragedy only after she becomes friends with the daughter of a client.
In the end, the movie is really about Rose looking at her life and finding the courage to get rid of the things that are hurting her so that she can take a chance on something new.
