Megan Holley's Debut Script - Sunshine Cleaning
DVD Review - Movie Starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin
Aug 29, 2009
Megan Holley was inspired to explore the emotions and motivations of those who clean up after death when she heard about two female friends working in the biohazard removal business. The emerging popularity of forensic medicine and crime scene television shows at the time meant audiences were curious about, and then desensitised in degrees to, gruesome subject matter to which they had not previously been exposed.
Debut Script for Megan Holley
Sunshine Cleaning is written by Megan Holley, a first-time screenwriter. Holley won an award with this script at the Virginia Governor's 2003 scriptwriting competition sponsored by the Virginia Film Office. Recognition of her Sunshine Cleaning script was the catalyst to launch Holley's career; she was subsequently named in Variety’s 10 Screenwriters to Watch list in 2005. Sunshine Cleaning is directed by New Zealander Christine Jeffs (Sylvia).
Sunshine Cleaning The Movie
The central characters in Holley's script are the Lorkowski sisters; Rose, played by Amy Adams (Doubt, Charlie Wilsons War) and Norah, played by Emily Blunt (The Young Victoria, The Devil Wears Prada). In high school Rose was the cheerleader captain with the quarterback boyfriend and expected a different life than the one she finds herself living. Norah is aimless and irresponsible. Their Dad, Joe, played by Alan Arkin is a get-rich-quick schemer and dreamer bouncing between failures.
Now a thirty-something single mother, Rose needs to earn more to cover private school education for her young son, Oscar, who doesn’t fit in at the local school. Rose leaves her job as a maid, cleaning houses for wealthy women, to start a business in lucrative crime scene clean-ups, enlisting her reluctant, employment-challenged, younger sister Norah as a partner.
Holley's Black Comedy and Drama
The film's graphic realism may be disturbing for some, darkly comedic for others, as the sisters clean up after murders, suicides and belatedly discovered deaths. They mature through facing not only the ghastly aftermath of death but also the bereaved, unexpectedly bonding through their common experience of tragedy. Whilst dealing with other people’s distress and disaster, they gradually tackle the mess they have created in their own lives.
Holley has introduced sub-plots to add intrigue and complication to the story - the slowly revealed family mystery, Joe’s entrepreneurial exploits, the married lover, borderline stalking, and romantic possibilities with the helpful one-armed chemical salesman. It is also the story of young Oscar, his security and stability always just around the corner, waiting for the adults in his life to get their act together.
Sunshine Cleaning DVD Release 25 Aug 2009
Sunshine Cleaning is the touching tale of a family of basically decent people who don’t quite follow the straight and narrow. Set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the movie lacks colour, the dreary backgrounds reflecting the family's existence on minimal incomes on the wrong side of the tracks, but then there is little to distract the viewer from the characters' strength and spirit as they strive for success and self-respect.
Sunshine Cleaning, a film with great performances and a bonus insight into unusual subjects such as trestling (an illegal extreme pastime involving trains and bridges), biohazard business jargon and specialised cleaning equipment for any tragic circumstance. Sunshine Cleaning is a very real bittersweet story of human failings, struggles against the odds, the satisfaction of small triumphs, and a resilient family who are there for each other through thick and thin.
