By Matt Collette, News staff

The two films may share similar titles and Alan Arkin’s familiar presence as a fun, warm grandfather, but ‘Sunshine Cleaning’ isn’t ‘Little Miss Sunshine.’
The movie is about Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams), a single mother who cleans homes for a living. Some nights, she leaves her 8-year-old son, Oscar (Jason Spevack), with her sister Norah (Emily Blunt), claiming her aspirations of getting a real estate license as the reason. Instead, Rose, a former high school cheerleader, meets up with Mac (Steve Zahn), her high school sweetheart, now a married cop, for brief encounters in a motel room.
Early in the film, Rose is at work cleaning a home in Albuquerque, N.M., where the film is set, when she realizes she’s cleaning the home of a former classmate. Rose finds out her old friend is a real estate agent and lies, saying that she’s only cleaning houses while she finishes up getting her license.
Rose then decides she’s had enough of cleaning houses and pioneers her own business. Mac tells her about a suicide at a gun supply store (the first scene in the movie shows it happen), and explains that the store owners paid $3,000 to have the mess cleaned up. Rose ropes in Norah and they start up Sunshine Cleaning, getting crime-scene referrals from Mac.
The film finds its heart in Rose’s relationships with those around her. At a janitorial supply store, she becomes friendly with the one-armed cashier, Winston (Clifton Collins Jr.). While Norah writes Winston off as a freak immediately, Rose gets to know him. He helps her get supplies, certifications and ‘- most importantly ‘- business. During the course of the film, Rose and Winston begin to form a relationship.
Rose finds joy in her work knowing that she is helping people. In a heartwarming scene where Sunshine Cleaning is called in to clean up after an elderly man kills himself, Rose sits with his widow, holding her hand as she tries to imagine a new world. For a moment, Rose is her rock. It is one of Adams’ best scenes in the movie, and she delivers just a single line.
The work is hard to explain to others, who don’t understand how Rose could find importance in the work she does.
‘We come into people’s lives when they’ve experienced something profound,’ she tells a group of high school classmates at a baby shower. Realizing she no longer fits in with her old friends, Rose leaves the shower early.
Emily Blunt’s character is haunted by a moment in her past, and she reaches out to a stranger named Lynn, (Mary Lynn Rajskub, of ’24’) because she feels they may be able to connect through possessions owned by Lynn’s recently deceased mother, discovered by Norah as she cleaned up the dead woman’s home. Buttoned-up Lynn is a stark contrast to Blunt’s wild child character and hopes a friendship ‘- possibly more ‘- could develop from her encounters with Norah.
Arkin’s character, the Lorkowski patriarch, splits his time between trying to sell products to local businesses (he markets everything from popcorn to shrimp) and watching his grandson while his mother works. His character is charming and honorable, and he will do anything to support his family.
The film, which opened Friday, premiered more than a year ago at the Sundance Film Festival, but is even more relevant now. Rose and her family struggle to make ends meet, a challenge more and more Americans increasingly face during the recession.
The film shows each character making sacrifices in the hopes of finding success to make their lives, and their family’s lives, better.
And while it may not be the funniest movie of the year, it has some great comedic moments, especially as Rose and Norah begin to realize what kind of work they’ll have to be doing. But more than humor, the film brings heart and the chance to leave the theatre smiling.