“There is dignity in all work.” True enough, whoever penned that famous phrase, even if he never had to meet Perez Hilton. What would make an interesting addendum, though, is that finding that dignity is a story worth telling. Example: Whatever happened to the former high school cheerleading captain who dated the quarterback? You remember Rose? She’s now a single mom working as a housecleaner and having an affair with a married cop.

So is the jumping-off point for Sunshine Cleaning, a new dramatic comedy starring Amy Adams (Doubt, Junebug) as Rose Lorkowski and Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) as her sister Norah.

Rose tells herself the maid work is just a transitional phase while she gets her real estate license. Norah is still living at home with their father, Joe (Alan Arkin), a salesman with a long history of ill-fated get-rich schemes.

Desperate to get her troubled son into a better school, Rose persuades Norah to partner with her in the more lucrative niche market of crime scene clean-up. After passing the gag-test initiation rite of their first rookie job (a finger shot off in a domestic dispute case) the sisters find themselves elbow-deep in the gory aftermath of suicides, murders and other forensic horror-scenes.

Naming her new business Sunshine Cleaning and tackling it with the same, cheery zeal as her former cheerleader self, Rose quickly learns the rules and ropes of her unlikely new market. (For instance, there are products out there specially formulated for cleaning up a “decomp.”) Norah dutifully labors alongside her sister, not exactly grateful for the new job, but not exactly complaining either.

While the sisters realize a reparative bond is forming between them, they also realize that they are approaching this traditionally macho, are-you-tough-enough job in a radical new way: as women. Screenwriter Megan Holley (in her first produced screenplay) drives the point home in one touching scene in which the sisters are called to the home of an elderly woman whose husband has just committed suicide. Rose, sensing the newly widowed woman’s shock and confusion, sits with her on her front porch, silently holding her hand. She won’t allow herself to cry, even as the widow allows herself finally to break down.

Rose’s odd new life is building to a personal epiphany, and when it comes, it occurs in the one place she had hoped to redeem herself on the most superficial of levels – at a baby shower attended by her former high school classmates. It’s one of the film’s best scenes, and also shows off the impressive depth of understanding Amy Adams brings to her roles.

“I also really could identify with wanting to be more than you are,” said Adams of her role, “in a different place that you were born into, to sort of elevate your status in the world. That’s something I think a lot of people identify with.”

Set in the arid, chain store landscape of Albuquerque, (although the screenwriter originally placed the story in Baltimore), director Christine Jeffs makes the most of the Southwestern city’s locations, aided by cinematographer John Toon.

Aside from a few too many nakedly sentimental subplots cued with emotive, acoustic guitar (a tiresome indie convention) which, if cut, might have kept the story leaner and more on its true, emotional track, Sunshine Cleaning is a welcome take on a real, “purpose-driven life.”

Sunshine Cleaning opens in theaters on March 27^th.

-David Savage