''Sunshine Cleaning'' is a 2008
comedy-drama
Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...
film written by Megan Holley and directed by
Christine Jeffs
Christine Jeffs (born 29 January 1963) is a New Zealand-born director, editor, and screenwriter.
She is best known for directing the films ''Rain'', '' Sylvia'', and '' Sunshine Cleaning''. Jeffs is also known for her work on television commerci ...
. It stars
Amy Adams
Amy Lou Adams (born August 20, 1974) is an American actress. Known for both her comedic and dramatic roles, she has been featured three times in annual rankings of the world's highest-paid actresses. She has received various accolades, incl ...
,
Emily Blunt
Emily Olivia Leah Blunt (born 23 February 1983) is a British actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for three British Academy Film Awards. ...
, and
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin (born March 26, 1934) is an American actor, director and screenwriter known for his performances on stage and screen. Throughout his career spanning over six decades, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award ...
. The story revolves around two sisters who start a crime scene cleanup business and the various events that occur in their respective lives. Produced by
Big Beach, the film premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...
on January 18, 2008, was purchased by
Overture Films
Overture Films was an American film production and distribution company and a subsidiary of Starz (then subsidiary of Liberty Media). It was founded in November 2006 by Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett. Through its affiliated companies Anchor Bay E ...
for distribution, and opened in limited release in the United States on March 13, 2009. ''Sunshine Cleaning'' garnered positive reviews from critics and was a minor box-office hit, grossing $17.3 million against a $5 million budget. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on August 25, 2009.
Plot
Rose Lorkowski is a 30-something single mother and full-time house cleaner. Her underachieving and unreliable sister Norah, lives with their father Joe and is fired from her most current job. Rose's hyperactive and disruptive 8-year-old son Oscar upsets his school officials with his erratic behavior. They tell Rose to put him on medication or send him to a private school. Unable to earn enough with her current job, Rose asks Mac, her former high-school boyfriend and now-married lover, for advice. Mac recommends a
crime scene cleanup
Crime scene cleanup is a term applied to cleanup of blood, bodily fluids, and other potentially infectious materials (OPIM). It is also referred to as biohazard remediation, and forensic cleanup, because crime scenes are only a portion of the si ...
job, using his connections as a police officer to get Rose and Norah into the business.
At first, the sisters are unaware how to properly perform their job, are unlicensed, and carelessly handle hazardous materials by throwing them into dumpsters instead of properly disposing of bio-waste in an incinerator. Needing to operate as a more reputable service, the sisters get the necessary tools from Winston, a one-armed storekeeper of a shop for cleanup material, who helps the sisters. The sisters name their business "Sunshine Cleaning" and their reputation grows. They begin to find meaning in their function to "help" in some way in the aftermath of a loss or disaster, even though the job stirs recollections of their own mother's suicide. At the same time, family members deal with their individual problems. Rose encounters some of her former high school classmates and is embarrassed by her low status in life. After an encounter with Mac's pregnant wife in a gas station, where the cheated-upon wife mocks Rose's post-high school life, Rose realizes that Mac will never leave his wife, and ends their relationship. Norah meets and has a relationship with Lynn, the daughter of a woman whose house they cleaned. Joe (who makes exaggerated promises) begins to sell shrimp independently, hoping to raise enough money to buy expensive binoculars Oscar wants for his birthday.
One day, an insurance company hires Sunshine Cleaning, giving the sisters a possible breakthrough for gaining steady lucrative jobs. Unfortunately for Rose, a
baby shower
A baby shower is a party of gift-giving, drinking beers or a ceremony that has different names in different cultures. It celebrates the delivery or expected birth of a child or the transformation of a woman into a mother.
Etymology
The term ''s ...
is on the same day, with all her more prosperous high school classmates attending. She asks Norah to clean the house alone until she can catch up. Norah bungles her solitary cleaning assignment, as she accidentally burns down the house with an unattended candle. Their business reputation is tarnished and saddles them with a $40,000 debt which the sisters cannot pay. Sunshine Cleaning goes out of business, and Rose returns to being a house cleaner. Meanwhile, Joe's shrimp plan goes awry as stores and restaurants refuse to buy from an unlicensed food distributor for health and safety reasons. Joe failed to realize legitimate businesses would be unwilling to buy food from a questionable source.
Lynn breaks off her relationship with Norah as she questions whether Norah was truly interested in her at all. At Oscar's birthday party, Norah apologizes to Rose, and despite still being mad, Rose forgives her. The family then celebrate Oscar's birthday with Winston, who seems quite taken with Rose.
Sometime later, Rose visits her father who says he's sold his house and with the money has started a new cleanup business named Lorkowski Cleaning. He asks Rose to be the knowledgeable managing partner, and she agrees. Norah finally shows independence by going on a road trip to find her new self, while Rose starts working with her father.
Cast
*
Amy Adams
Amy Lou Adams (born August 20, 1974) is an American actress. Known for both her comedic and dramatic roles, she has been featured three times in annual rankings of the world's highest-paid actresses. She has received various accolades, incl ...
as Rose Lorkowski
*
Emily Blunt
Emily Olivia Leah Blunt (born 23 February 1983) is a British actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for three British Academy Film Awards. ...
as Norah Lorkowski
*
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin (born March 26, 1934) is an American actor, director and screenwriter known for his performances on stage and screen. Throughout his career spanning over six decades, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award ...
as Joe Lorkowski
*
Jason Spevack
Jason Spevack (born July 4, 1997) is a Canadian actor and filmmaker. He is a graduate of The London School of Economics. He has dual citizenship with Canada and the United States. Spevack has appeared in over 40 commercials for radio and televisi ...
as Oscar Lorkowski
*
Steve Zahn
Steven James Zahn (; born November 13, 1967) is an American actor and comedian. His film roles include ''Reality Bites'' (1994), ''That Thing You Do!'' (1996), ''Stuart Little'' (1999), '' Shattered Glass'' (2003), ''Sahara'' (2005), '' Chicken Li ...
as Mac
*
Mary Lynn Rajskub
Mary Lynn Rajskub (; born June 22, 1971) is an American actress and comedian who is best known for portraying Chloe O'Brian in the action thriller series '' 24'', and the character Gail the Snail in ''It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia''. Rajskub ...
as Lynn
*
Clifton Collins Jr.
Clifton Craig Collins Jr. is an American actor. After starting in 1990, with small roles in film and on television, Collins gained attention for his performance as Cpl. Ramon Aguilar, a prisoner "serving" under an imprisoned general played by R ...
as Winston
*
Eric Christian Olsen
Eric Christian Olsen (born May 31, 1977), is an American actor. He is known for his portrayals of Investigator Marty Deeks on the CBS television series '' NCIS: Los Angeles'', and of Austin in the film ''Not Another Teen Movie''.
Early life
O ...
as Randy
*
Paul Dooley
Paul Dooley (born Paul Brown; February 22, 1928) is an American character actor, writer and comedian. He is known for his roles in ''Breaking Away'', ''Sixteen Candles'', and ''Popeye''.
Early life
Dooley was born Paul Brown on February 22, 1 ...
as Sherm
*
Kevin Chapman
Kevin Chapman (born July 29, 1962) is an American actor known for playing an assortment of characters ranging from the obnoxious brother Terrence Garrity in FX's '' Rescue Me'' to street enforcer Val Savage in Clint Eastwood's ''Mystic River'' ...
as Carl Swanson
*
Amy Redford
Amy Hart Redford (born October 22, 1970) is an American actress and filmmaker.
Early life
Amy Redford's parents are historian and environmental activist Lola Van Wagenen and film director and actor Robert Redford.
She received her BA in D ...
as Heather
Release
''Sunshine Cleaning'' was produced by independent film company Big Beach. On February 26, 2008, ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' reported that it was purchased by
Overture Films
Overture Films was an American film production and distribution company and a subsidiary of Starz (then subsidiary of Liberty Media). It was founded in November 2006 by Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett. Through its affiliated companies Anchor Bay E ...
for distribution. It received a small-scale release on March 13, 2009.
Box office
Box Office Mojo
Box Office Mojo is an American website that tracks box-office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The site was founded in 1998 by Brandon Gray, and was bought in 2008 by IMDb, which itself is owned by Amazon.
History
Brandon Gray began ...
said the film showed promise earning $219,190 from four, an average of $54,798 per location, and made decent earnings when it expanded to 64 theaters the following weekend, earning a further $671,618. The film expanded to 167 theaters in its third week.
By the end of its run it earned $12 million in North American and a further $5.3 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $17.3 million.
Critical response
''Sunshine Cleaning'' received mostly positive reviews from critics. On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has a 75% approval rating based on 181 reviews, with an average score of 6.4/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Despite a sometimes overly familiar plot, ''Sunshine Cleaning'' benefits from the lively performances of its two stars." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has an average score of 61 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Peter Travers
Peter Joseph Travers (born ) is an American film critic, journalist, and television presenter. He reviews films for ABC News and previously served as a movie critic for ''People'' and ''Rolling Stone''. Travers also hosts the film interview prog ...
of ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, stating "This funny and touching movie depends on two can-do actresses to scrub past the biohazard of noxious clichés that threaten to intrude. Adams and Blunt get the job done. They come highly recommended." Betsy Sharkey of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' deemed that "on the surface, ''Sunshine Cleaning''...is an offbeat and oddly endearing drama, leavened with just the right amount of comedy to even things out".
''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' gave the film a mixed review, rating 3 out of 5 stars, saying "Given the subject matter and the sheer volume of putrefying human remains, it's remarkable that the movie still bobs along on a seemingly unquenchable current of sentimental optimism".
Critics praised the performances of the cast, especially Adams.
Mick LaSalle
Mick is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Michael. Because of its popularity in Ireland, it is often used in England as a derogatory term for an Irish person or a person of Irish descent. In Australia the meaning broaden ...
of ''
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
'' gave the film a positive review, saying: "The play of emotion on Amy Adams' face is the main reason to see ''Sunshine Cleaning''."
A. O. Scott of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote that the film "sometimes seems better than it is" because "Ms. Jeffs (''Rain'', ''Sylvia'') has a good touch with actors and a very good cast. Amy Adams and Emily Blunt...attack their roles with vivacity and dedication, even if the roles themselves don't entirely make sense." Of Adams' portrayal of her character,
Michael Sragow
Michael Sragow (born June 26, 1952 in New York) is a film critic and columnist who has written for the ''Orange County Register'', ''The Baltimore Sun'', ''Film Comment'', ''The San Francisco Examiner'', ''The New Times'', ''The New Yorker'' (whe ...
of ''
The Baltimore Sun
''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries.
Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...
'' said, "Adams achieves perfect clarity, with a touch of the divine."
Awards
References
External links
*
* {{mojo title, sunshinecleaning
Original Story on NPR
2008 films
2008 comedy films
2008 comedy-drama films
2008 drama films
2008 independent films
2000s American films
2000s business films
2000s English-language films
American business films
American comedy-drama films
American female buddy films
American independent films
Big Beach (company) films
Films about sisters
Films scored by Michael Penn
Films shot in New Mexico
LGBT-related comedy-drama films
Overture Films films