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DVD Review- Sunshine Cleaning (2009)
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Amy Adams and Emily Blunt suit up in Sunshine Cleaning.
There's always money to be made doing work that most people would consider putrid or disgusting. Plumbers charge exorbitant fees due to the potential risk of dealing with sewage or waste. Morticians tend to not have much competition securing employment since most people don't want to deal with cadavers. Exterminators make lots of cash battling all kinds of vermin. Sunshine Cleaning is a movie about another gross occupation: crime scene/trauma cleanup.
The ever delightful Amy Adams (Junebug, Enchanted) stars as Rose Lorkowski, a single mother who makes her living cleaning houses. She's a former high school cheerleading captain who dreams of someday becoming a real estate agent. Her eight year old son Oscar (Jason Spevack; Hollywoodland) causes quite a bit of havoc at school, so much so that the school's administrators suggest sending him to private school. Of course, such schooling is out of Rose's pay range.
Opportunity strikes when Rose's married lover Mac (Steve Zahn; Saving Silverman, Joyride) suggests that cleaning up after crime scenes would be a lucrative business. Rose takes his advice, she enlists her unemployed sister Norah (Emily Blunt; The Devil Wears Prada) and opens the biohazard clean-up business Sunshine Cleaning. From there Rose and Norah encounter such job hazards as severed body parts, bloodborne pathogens, and competing clean-up teams.
Sunshine Cleaning is mildly amusing at times but ultimately unfulfilling. Amy Adams is a nice piece of everything and usually entertaining when onscreen, but she alone cannot save the slightness of the script. There's no real conflict in the story, the movie just sits there on the screen anchored by a plaintative acoustic guitar score that's sleep inducing. There's a storyline where Norah tries to befriend the daughter of one of the deceased that's improbable and goes nowhere.
Also, the great Oscar-winner Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine, Glengarry Glen Ross) is wasted in a supporting role as Rose and Norah's father. The screenplay gives him very little to do, maybe the filmmakers thought putting Arkin in another movie with Sunshine in the title might result in another Oscar. Another excellent seasoned actor is barely utilized, Paul Sorvino (Goodfellas, Law & Order) puts in a thankless small role as a car salesman. While this is not a horrible movie, it's not a particularly good one either and is a waste of a good premise. The concept was better fulfilled in the 1996 black comedy Curdled. Sunshine Cleaning is not recommended.
Surprisingly, the sole featurette included on the disc is better than the movie. It's called "Sunshine Cleaning: A Fresh Look at a Dirty Business," which interviews two women who are actual biohazard/crime scene cleaners. The film's trailer is included too. Also available on Blu-Ray.
For more information: Sunshine Cleaning
Rent it from Netflix: Sunshine Cleaning
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