JUST when you think you've seen every imaginable plot for a movie or TV show about murder, something surprisingly wonderful like Sunshine Cleaning comes along.

From Hitchcock and the hard-boiled detective film noirs to the CSIs and the brilliantly inventive Dexter, stories with a hint of homicide have usually ignored one real-life angle - who cleans up the blood and guts after the cops and their forensic teams have done their bit?

Enter the girls of Sunshine Cleaning, two down-on-their-luck sisters who decide to get into the apparently lucrative crime scene clean-up business.

Adams is Rose Lorkowksi, a former prom queen who became a single mother working as a cleaner for her richer more successful old classmates, while Blunt is Norah, her shiftless, fiery younger sister who hasn't found a direction in life.

By banding together as Sunshine Cleaning, their job offers up enough intriguing possibilities for a TV series as the siblings not only do the physical mopping up of blood stains but also try to help people deal with the emotional aftermath for those left behind. All the while, memories of their mother's own death start to bubble to the surface.

The film's broad themes of death, grief and finding your place in the world are touched with occasional light humour to ease the potential heaviness and the cast does a superb job of handling both the quirky and emotional elements of the story.

Arkin is particularly good as the girls' dad, filling a similar role to that he played in Little Miss Sunshine (although without the heroin), while Adams and Blunt are both excellent in the lead roles. Sunshine Cleaning's indie-film quirks, inventive premise, strong performances and warm heart make this a charming and unique story.