Sunshine Cleaning: Movie Review (2009)

Directed by Christine Jeffs, written by Megan Holly, 102 minutes, rated R.

“Sunshine Cleaning” stars Amy Adams as Rose, a single mother trying to make it in the world while keeping her dignity intact and her family in check.

Rose’s day job is spent unfulfilling her potential by cleaning homes for those wealthier than she, such as former high-school girlfriends who are startled when they realize that it’s Rose scrubbing their toilets and who then try to stifle their surprise with an awkwardness that's palpable.

Rose’s side job is a 24-hour gig that involves keeping tabs on her sketchy sister Norah (Emily Blunt); their well-meaning but befuddled father Joe (Alan Arkin); and also Rose's 7-year-old son Oscar (Jason Spevack), a sweet kid with a knack for landing into trouble.

In between all this, Rose manages to have a love life with a cop named Mac (Steve Zahn), who once was her high school sweetheart, but who now is married to another woman pregnant with his umpteenth child.

Back in the day, when Mack and Rose were young and in love, they were the "It" couple on campus. Mac was the quarterback of the football team, Rose was a spirited cheerleader, but now that each are somewhere in their mid-thirties, the dreams of their youth have been reduced to lies and deceit, and quick trysts in out-of-town motels.

And yet here's the thing about Rose. In spite of her moral shortcomings, you like her and pull for her. This is due in large part to how Adams approaches the character, which is with a mix of grace and vulnerability, hurt and pride, all of which shade over her face seemingly at once. Her performance in this movie is measured and flawless, with Adams resonating a groundswell of emotions that feel lived-in and real.

Rose knows she can do better in her life. For her, it’s finding out what and how that's the problem. When Mac offers a clue--there is a niche market in cleaning up after the dead--Rose pays attention. The lowdown is this: If someone blows off their head, who's going to clean that up? The situation is, after all, a biohazard. Moreover, if an elderly person dies in their home without anyone knowing for days, weeks or even months, what grieving family member is going to want to tackle that job? And so, along with her sister, Rose starts Sunshine Cleaning, for which there seems to be no shortage of customers.

Subplots abound in this movie, and occasionally they detract. One explores Norah’s odd relationship with another woman, which goes nowhere, and another that deals with how Joe has struggled to raise two daughters and cope in the wake of his wife’s untimely death. The most meaningful subplot involves the potential for Rose to find a much healthier relationship with Winston (Clifton Collins Jr.), a single man of the same age who owns a hardware store and who is physically challenged by having only one arm.

The movie doesn’t make much of his disability, which is nice--it is what it is. But his quiet presence in the film gives it additional weight, particularly since his growing relationship with Rose allows director Jeffs and her screenwriter Megan Holly to keep their focus where it needs to be--on Rose, who, through a lot of introspection, starts to come into focus herself.

Grade: B

View the trailer for "Sunshine Cleaning" here:









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