Thoughts on Sunshine Cleaning

One of my favorite films is Sunshine Cleaning, a 2008 indie film starring Amy Adams and Emily Blunt, written by Megan Holley and directed by Christine Jeffs. It has this mix of being funny and grim that really appeals to me, and has oddly stuck with me.

The film is about two sisters, Rose (Adams) and Norah (Blunt) who don’t have real career focuses in life, and fall into an unusual career of running a crime scene cleanup company in New Mexico, and find that they are naturally passionate about it. The work also brings them together in a closer bond, developing a deeper respect for one another, and forging a better future for their whole family.

The sisters grew up with a widowed dad (Alan Arkin) after their mother died by suicide, and had a hardscrabble life of just barely getting by. Arkin’s character feels like his character from Slums of Beverly Hills, a single father raising a family on the brink of poverty who is an eternal optimist and always has hustles to keep the family afloat and looking on the bright side.

Rose is a single mom who cleans houses and motels for a living, and talks more about getting her real estate license than actually going through with it. She is also engaging in an affair with her former high school boyfriend Mack, now a married cop with kids (Steve Zahn). She is so in need of intimacy and to feel attractive that she engages in this unhealthy affair, feeling as if they have a special connection for being high school sweethearts, despite that he started a life with someone else.

It is a testament to Steve Zahn’s likability that he can play a man cheating on his wife with his old girlfriend and still come off as a good guy. He helps Rose start her career in crime scene cleanup, giving her tips on places to clean, so that she can make more money to support her son and have her own independent business.

A poignant moment in the film is when Rose lies to Norah about going to real estate classes, when she is really going to see Mack, and Norah cuts through the lie with “Well, Heather’s pregnant again.” Rose’s face is clearly heartbroken while trying to remain calm and neutral, knowing that Mack will never leave his wife but is her only source of intimacy, not wanting to let go of it or be rejected.

Norah is a slacker in a series of short-term jobs, and grows to appreciate being valued in the cleanup business with her sister, seeing it as a service to help people dealing with tragedy. She also feels connected with the deceased people that they are cleaning up after, learning about their lives through their personal belongings and emphasizing with their pain and suffering.

She also forms a friendship with an unsuspecting woman (Mary Lynn Rajskub) who was the daughter of a deceased alcoholic hoarder whose home Norah cleaned, in order to connect over having lost their mothers tragically, and to feel a meaningful purpose in her life. Blunt is great at playing a character who is at both darkly funny on the outside yet, inside, struggling with grief over the loss of her mother.

Clifton Collins, Jr. as Winston, is one of my favorite characters in the film, as a kind-hearted one-armed ponytailed man who runs a hardware store where the sisters get their supplies. He is just so chill and down to earth, and is this likable and warm presence in the film.

The sisters begin as rough newbies, trying to clean blood off of the walls with spray cleaner bottles, putting contaminated sheets in the washing machine, and dragging a mattress formerly occupied by a deceased person to an average dumpster, being completely unaware of the safety and health hazards that they are committing. But it is rewarding to watch them educate themselves, with Rose taking classes in proper cleaning technique and the two of them purchasing a van for their equipment.

It is great to watch a movie about sisters taking more control of their lives and creating a more positive future for themselves and their loved ones.

Thoughts on Goon: Last of the Enforcers

Goon: Last of the Enforcers is a freakin’ awesome movie. The original is a dirty and hilarious sports comedy where Seann William Scott plays this sweet but dopey hockey enforcer on a rag tag Canadian team. I adored the first movie, and the sequel carries on the story perfectly. Scott’s character Doug gets the shit beaten out of him by a rival enforcer (Wyatt Russell), who is pretty much a psycho Thor on the ice, ending his career. And he has to learn how to balance his love of his team, his desire to come back, and being a supportive partner to his pregnant wife (Alison Pill).

This is my favorite role of Scott’s, next to Country Mac as his guest role in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Despite his typecasting as a perverted smug douchebag, he comes off as a sweet and nice guy in interviews, and playing Doug gives him way more heart and kindness than those earlier roles did. He just plays this dim but sweet guy who isn’t inherently violent, but just happens to be really good at kicking ass on the ice, and just loves the warm brotherhood of his international teammates, whose crude humor in their Russian and French-Canadian accents is hysterical.

I cracked up hard during a scene where Russell’s character Cain is supposed to deliver a motivational speech as team captain, but instead just berates everyone with constant swearing and abusive insults. It was like the antithesis of Kurt Russell’s inspirational speeches from Miracle, and hilarious to see his son deliver that scene.

I don’t know anything about hockey, but I love how this movie captures the insanity and love of the game. The first film was a huge hit in Canada, and this film definitely has close ties to Canada and real hockey, between it being directed by the French-Canadian Jay Baruchel, and featuring Russell and Elisha Cuthbert, both who have real-life experience with the sport (Russell was a serious player; Cuthbert dated hockey players), and really feeling like a hometown hero kind of movie.

The sequel really progressed the story forward, it wasn’t redundant, and it felt like there was more maturity and growth with the characters, especially with Doug, Pill’s character (who was adjusting from being a beer-loving hockey groupie to being the pregnant wife of an injured player), and Liev Schreiber’s character, a formerly violent enforcer worn down by age, but could still have some fight left in him. I highly recommend this movie if you like sports movies or dirty, crude humor.