Release Date: 3/20/09 (Limited)
There’s something similar about Sunshine Cleaning and Little Miss Sunshine – and it’s not just the title or the fact that Alan Arkin plays the same character in both movies. Both revolve around a quirky, down-on-their-luck family trying to catch a break. Both involve flawed-but-lovable characters. Both have some very serious undertones with plenty of comic relief. What separates Sunshine Cleaning from the latter and makes it definitely worth seeing, is obviously Amy Adams and Emily Blunt. They are awesome. The two play as sisters and their chemistry onscreen is just fun to watch.
Rose Lorkowski (Adams) is the older sister of Norah (Blunt). Rose is a single mother raising her son Oscar (Jason Spevack); very cute kid, and working full-time as a maid. Norah can’t keep a job and still lives at home with her Dad, Joe (Arkin). While it seems like Rose is the smarter, more responsible older sister, it’s somewhat of a façade. Rose makes some terrible decisions, like having an affair with a married man and Norah is the one to tell her straight that it’s never going to happen. Of course, Norah isn’t exactly nice about it, but Rose needs to hear it. And later, Rose feels the need to attend a party hosted by her girl “friends” from high school, just to make herself feel better about herself. Again, Norah has to be the one to tell her that she’s better than them and shouldn’t feel the need to prove herself. The scenes where they’re bantering back and forth are great, but there are also a couple of very powerful, emotional scenes, especially when they talk about their mother’s funeral.
What brings Rose and Norah together in the first place is business. They both need a job, so the two start their own crime scene clean-up business. Basically, they go into a home after some kind of murder or gruesome death has occurred, and they clean it up. Kind of gross, but it makes both of them feel good to help out. Arkin might play the same type of gruff grandfather that we know from Little Miss, but he sure is funny. And he’s great with kids. His scenes with his grandson, Oscar, are nothing short of adorable.
As far as the serious plots of the movie, like Rose dealing with her affair with Mac (Steve Zahn) and trying to raise money for Oscar to attend private school, and Norah still dealing with her mother’s death, and Joe with his continuous get-rich-quick schemes, there are plenty of big moments in the movie where the characters finally address their issues.
But some of the scenes that seem so important get so built up, and then the scene just ends. Some people like open-ended interpretations but I’m not really a fan. Especially with the whole lesbian thing. Is Norah a lesbian? I don’t think she is.
Imdb: 7.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%
Moviewiseguys: 7.0/10