Alan Arkin and Amy Adams shine in Cleaning

by Naureen Mohammed, 2L
Law Weekly
April 1, 2009

Remember 2006's runaway hit, Little Miss Sunshine? That oddball family that could take you from tears to laughter in a matter of seconds? Well, some of the producers of that film came together to bring you another great movie, Sunshine Cleaning. The two Sunshine movies share a lot of commonalities; they are both well-written stories about average, low-income families who face their weaknesses and make changes in the way they live and relate to each other as they step off the path they have followed thus far.

Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine) plays Joe Lorkowski, the patriarch of the family whose constant get-rich-quick schemes never seem to work. His older daughter Lori, (Amy Adams, Enchanted) is a single mother who works as a maid to make ends meet and is the responsible, grounded member of the family. Her son Oscar (Jason Spevack) is a dreamer whose unconventional behavior crosses social boundaries and makes him an outcast despite his positive and friendly personality. And finally there is Emily Blunt as Lori's flighty, irresponsible sister Norah, who cannot settle down and build a stable life or gather the courage to pack up and leave Albuquerque.

When Lori needs more money for her son's private school tuition, her policeman lover suggests she try opening up a crime scene clean-up business. Lori follows his advice and gets her sister to help her. At first, Norah is a reluctant assistant, but she feels a connection with one of the victims they have to clean up after. Lori's primary motivation is initially making money and being her own employer, but as the story develops, she begins to see her job as a service that helps people deal with horrific tragedies.

One of the most appealing attributes of Sunshine Cleaning is that while the circumstances are unusual, the writers and actors avoided making the characters annoyingly quirky or ridiculous. Despite Adams's extensive experience in cutesy roles, Lori's charm lies in the fact that most of us would have no trouble relating to her. There are also no villains or angels; Lori sleeps with a married man who cheats on his pregnant wife, but both seem like genuinely nice people who have no real desire to cause harm to anyone.

In case my comparison with Little Miss Sunshine is misleading, I want to make it clear that while there are some isolated funny moments in this film, it is definitely not a comedy. There are some seriously gross moments--the filmmakers chose not to gloss over the fact that death is often very, very messy. The Lorkowskis not only interact with grieving families at work, but have faced tragedy in the past themselves.

When watching this movie with friends, one of the most common complaints I heard was that the ending was abrupt. Like life, stories are not neatly tied up at the end of Sunshine Cleaning, and the audience is left at the beginning of another chapter in the lives of the Lorkowskis. Fictional or not, you can't help but hope everything works out for all of them.