Megan Holley heard a story on NPR about two women who started a crime scene cleaning business. By the time Holley arrived at work, she knew this story had to be a movie, and wrote her first screenplay. After winning a local screenwriting contest, she earned a trip to Sundance and a movie deal. Some political pundits say that the public’s optimism and hope during these bleak economic times may actually lead to better economic times. Fortunately for all of us, optimism and hope paved the way to a new career for Holley, and for Sunshine Cleaning’s lead character Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams).

Rose Lorkowski was a popular cheerleader in high school, but now she is a single parent who supports her young son Oscar (Jason Spevak) by cleaning houses. When Oscar is thrown out of public school, Rose realizes she needs to make some serious money to afford private school tuition.  Her father (Alan Arkin) means well, but his many get rich quick schemes leave him with little cash flow. Initially, Rose is hurt and insulted when her married lover Mac (Steve Zahn) suggests that there is a lot of money to be made cleaning crimes scenes.  Does he think the only thing she can do is clean, she wonders? But after Rose’s sister Norah (Emily Blunt) loses her job, Rose reconsiders and persuades Norah to join her in starting a crime scene/bio-hazards cleaning business. You might think there is comic potential in two sisters working at such an unpleasant job. Yes, they encounter blood and body parts, as well as maggots and other nasty things.  After Norah vomits at one of the early jobs, Rose tells her, “Great, now we have to clean up that too.” 

But the surprise is that the sisters find meaning in their unlikely business, and like what they do. The job enables them to attain the self respect that had eluded them. In the process of cleaning up the gory messes that others leave behind, they find a way to straighten out their own lives.  Yes, Sunshine Cleaning is funny at times, but it is also unexpectedly moving.

Sunshine Cleaning features a uniformly excellent cast. Amy Adams (Enchanted, Doubt) radiates sincerity and vulnerability as she promises to send her son to a better school, offers comfort to the spouse of a suicide victim, and tearfully admits her failure in romance to Winston (Clifton Collin Jr.), the one armed owner of the cleaning supply store who is infatuated with her. Emily Blunt (The Great Buck Howard) gives a nuanced performance as the tattooed tough girl, who still mourns the death of her mother by keeping a box of her things, entertains her nephew with scary stories and feels compelled to track down the owner of photographs found at one of the cleaning jobs.  Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine) again plays a quirky and spirited grandfather.  It is great fun to watch him try to sell bargain shrimp to a restaurant and make his grandson an accomplice in a candy selling scheme.  Clifton Collin Jr. gives a moving and understated performance, as Winston listens to young Oscar’s questions about his missing arm while showing the boy how to build model airplanes, and gives Rose tips on the crime scene cleaning business.

The funniest scene in the film is when Rose attends a baby shower for some high school friends. In an attempt to impress them, she tells them the details of her crimes scene business. As she describes the various bio- hazards she encounters, they look at her with shock and disgust. But moments later, these same women are giggling over a rather vile game that involves chocolate in diapers. Now it is Rose’s turn to feel disgust and to leave. She realizes that she no longer needs to impress her high school friends, now that she has impressed herself.  When Rose’s high school friends ask her if she actually likes this work, she surprises herself by answering in the affirmative. She explains that it makes her feel good to help people at a horrible time in their lives, and to spare them the further trauma of again encountering their tragedy.  Rose likes feeling intimately connected to these people she has never met.

When screenwriter Megan Holley wrote those scenes, she wasn’t sure if her memory of the NPR story was correct. But real life crime scene cleaners Stacey Haney and Theresa Borst, who started their business after hearing that victims’ families usually clean the scene of a crime or suicide, did say that they had a “feel good” job. It was this sentiment that inspired Holley to write her screenplay. Like Haney and Borst, she found something noble, good and inspirational in an unexpected place.

Sunshine Cleaning. Directed by Christine Jeffs. With Amy Adams (Rose Lorkowski), Emily Blunt (Norah), Alan Arkin (Joe), Jason Spevack(Oscar), Clifton Collin Jr. (Winston) and Steve Zahn  (Mac).   Overture Films, 2009.

 

Gail sees a movie appears every Wednesday.

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