Mopping up!

CSI gone dysfunctional

By Robert J. Sodaro

Sunshine Cleaning: Rated “R” (102 Minutes)

Starring: Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin, Jason Spevack, Steve Zahn

Directed by: Christine Jeffs

Now if you are looking for a film that is different, engaging, entertaining, and currently relevant, then you should make a point to fake yourself out to see sunshine cleaning. Not only is it a funny, endearing film it has the added benefit of patching into the ever growing legion of CSI fans, as the main protagonists in the film (a slightly dysfunctional pair of sisters) operate a start-up crime-scene clean-up business.

Rose & Norah are sisters who really don't along but have a co-dependent relationship where they put up with each other and depend upon each other even they really don't want to. Rose is a former high school cheerleading captain, now a single mom, working as a maid and having a dead-end relationship with her ex-high school sweetheart who is currently married with another high school classmate. Her sister Norah is also single, still living at home with their dad Joe, but is something of a klutz, always managing to screw up whatever she attempts.

Then there is their father, the eternal, optimistic schemer who is always on the lookout for that next great idea that will make him a mint, but only winds up stumbling from one half-baked get rich quick scheme to another. Rose wants to succeed, in spite of the nearly insurmountable odds in her path. Because he paramour is the local sheriff he suggests to her that she take up the crime scene cleaning business, and then recommends her for the job.

Desperate to get her son into a better school (and none of Grissom’s crew available to help her) Rose winds up convincing Norah join her in the crime scene clean-up business hoping to score some quick cash (apparently she is more like her father than she would care to admit). In short order, the girls are up to their elbows in murders, suicides, and other “interesting” situations. As they slug their way through a very dirty job, the sisters eventually learn a new respect for each other as well as the closeness they have never really had.

As they build their own improbable success story, the girls wind up opening the door to the joys and challenges of being there for one another — no matter what — while creating a brighter future for the entire Lorkowski family. This film started out showing in the art houses, but is now making its way through the mainstream multiplex market as it gains a wider audience. It would well be worth your while to check it out as well.

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This entire article is copyright (c) 2009 Freelance Ink, All rights reserved. It cannot be reprinted without specific, written permission from the author.

Robert J. Sodaro has been writing professionally for over 20 years. During that time, his movie reviews and articles have appeared in numerous publications, as well as on the web; currently his reviews appear on the Web here and in print in More Sugar. Questions? Comments? Queries? Log in, and have your own say.

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