‘Sunshine’ has its bright spots

The early word on "Sunshine Cleaning" is that it's a derivative indie/quirky in the "Little Miss Sunshine" mode.

It's produced by the same people, it's got the "Sunshine" brand right there in the title, and it's got Alan Arkin as the kooky grandpa.

But it's not fair to dismiss Sunshine as a retread of "Little Miss Sunshine." Because it's also a retread of the my-sister's-a-nightmare-in-black-eyeliner movie (see "Rachel Getting Married").

So it's every overhyped indie you've seen, and maybe didn't like, and yet it's often quite likable.

The reason is the agreeable Amy Adams, cast here as Rose, a single mom struggling to make ends meet by starting her own cleaning service, leaning on crazy pop (Arkin) for day care, and disaster/sister (Emily Blunt) for cheap labor.

The idea for Rose's start-up comes from her married boyfriend (Steve Zahn), a cop who helps Adams find work cleaning up bio-hazards left after murders and suicides. This is a dicey idea, especially as the movie wants to play it for laughs.

It's especially dicey given the way screenwriter Megan Holley integrates it with the sisters' own melodramatic biography - turns out their dysfunctional lives and relationships stem from their mother's own suicide.

Against long odds, "Sunshine Cleaning" builds goodwill, throwing in one good scene for every misfire. Blunt, the scene stealer in "The Devil Wears Prada," has a kind of Bette Davis, half-lidded way of looking at the world, and here uses it to express the her character's chronically low expectations. She scores in a subplot that has her returning mementos found at the scene of a suicide to an estranged heir.

And Adams has some nice moments with the helpful owner (Clifton Collins) of a cleaning supply shop - the movie works best when it's about the minor miracles wrought by small favors. But not even Adams can rescue a terrible scene of Rose trying to fake success in front of some suburban (read "shallow and materialistic") women. *

Produced by Jeb Brody, Peter Saraf, Marc Turtletaub, Glenn W*ll*amson, d*rected by Chr*st*ne Jeffs, wr*tten by Megan Holley, d*str*buted by Overture F*lms.