Sunshine Cleaning

There’s a scene in Sunshine Cleaning that involves two sisters and a waitress recommending pecan pie. I realized at that moment that this is not a movie for everyone. It’s a movie people might criticize as being too, well, unlikely.

It’s a metaphor that not everyone is going to get, even though Amy Adams as ex-cheerleader-turned-crime-scene-cleanup-girl Rose Lorkowski pretty much tells us straight out when she’s telling a group of ex-cheerleaders-turned-porsche-driving-baby-makers about her new job and then when she tells her ex-quarterback-married-cop-lover (played by Steve Zahn), “We took all that stuff away and made it better. We made it right.”

I GOT IT.

The beauty of Sunshine Cleaning, and Little Miss Sunshine before it, is in its cast of unconventional characters. everyone. From Rose’s inspirational “i’m good enough” post-it notes on her bathroom mirror, to her sister Norah’s (played perfectly by Emily Blunt) unexpected treasure box of her mother’s old cigarettes, to little Oscar’s conversations with heaven on a broken C.B. radio, to Alan Arkin’s get-rich-quick scheming by trying to sell shellfish and “healthy” popcorn, to the one-armed Winston’s desire to help Rose and her entire family, the cast is just a perfect mix of disfunction trying to come together to, you know, function.