Don’t let the splattered blood fool you. This film is suprisingly lighthearted and heartwarming for a movie about cleaning up biohazards.

Rose is a single mother of a precocious eight year old boy. She works as a maid to make ends meet. When she needs some quick cash to send her son to a special school, her married lover, a cop, turns her on to the lucrative niche business of crime scene cleanup.
Her younger sister Norah is still living at home with their dad and making a mess of her life. After Norah gets fired, Rose convinces her sister to help clean houses where people have died.

The strong relationship between the sister characters and the excellent underplayed performances of Amy Adams and Emily Blunt kept me watching even when the plot was a bit thin. Although the women are cleaning biohazard material, the occasional splattered blood depicted here is tame compared to a typical television crime show.

Enjoy this cheerful indie film about a dysfunctional family cleaning up their lives.

Sunshine Cleaning (2009)

• Directed by Christine Jeffs
• Written by Megan Holley
• Starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin, Jason Spevack, Steve Zahn
• MPAA rating: R; for language, disturbing images, some sexuality and drug use.
• Watch the trailer here