FilmSkool — a free film school
Sunshine Cleaning
A single mother and her slacker sister find an unexpected way to turn their lives around in this off-beat dramatic comedy. In order to raise the tuition to send her young son to private school the mom starts an unusual business – a biohazard removal/crime scene clean-up service.
2008 · Directed by Christine Jeffs · 91 min · Comedy · Drama · Screenplay in the scene database · 20 frames
Tagline
life's a messy business.
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 job, using his connections as a police officer to get Rose and Norah into the business.
At first, the sisters are clueless as to how to properly perform their job. They 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, in which she mocks Rose's post-high school life, Rose realizes that Mac will never leave his wife, and ends their relationship. Norah meets and becomes closer to 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 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.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Megan Holley
- Cinematography: John Toon
- Edited by: Heather Persons
- Music: Michael Penn
- Production design: Joseph T. Garrity
- Produced by: Jeb Brody, Peter Saraf, Marc Turtletaub, Glenn Williamson
Cast
- Amy Adams as Rose Lorkowski
- Emily Blunt as Norah Lorkowski
- Steve Zahn as Mac
- Alan Arkin as Joe Lorkowski
- Clifton Collins Jr. as Winston
- Eric Christian Olsen as Randy
- Kevin Chapman as Carl Swanson
- Jason Spevack as Oscar Lorkowski
- Mary Lynn Rajskub as Lynn
- Paul Dooley as Sherm
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English, Spanish
- Studios: Overture Films, Back Lot Pictures, Big Beach
- Budget: $5,000,000
- Box office: $16,174,377
- Themes: suicide, sibling relationship, single parent, cleaning lady, new mexico, family business , crime scene, biohazard, woman director, cleaning service
Own the film
FilmSkool earns a small commission from qualifying Amazon purchases, at no cost to you.
On this film
This is the plain index, shown because JavaScript is off. Every lesson here is a free video published by the channel credited on it and plays through that channel's own embed — FilmSkool hosts nothing.