New rule: No more buzzed-about Sundance films that include "sunshine" in the title. Please? Discovering that Sunshine Cleaning shares producers with Little Miss Sunshine is like finding out something lame that you kind of suspected might be true about the person you're interested in, but that you were willing to overlook out of optimistic desperation. It makes you feel gullible for being attracted to it.

Still, one could hardly be blamed for finding comfort in the offbeat premise of a single mom, Rose (Amy Adams!), and her grungy, grumpy sister Norah (Emily Blunt!!!) going into business together as biohazard removers and crime scene cleaners, scraping up the decomposing remains of the victims of suicide, murder, and various other messy deaths.

In many respects, Sunshine Cleaning delivers: It's charming and interesting, with darkly gross comedy and characters you easily warm to (like Clifton Collins Jr. as Winston, the sweet, one-armed man who works at the professional cleaning supply store). When Norah falls face first onto a blood-and-I-don't-even-know-what-stained mattress while the sisters are bickering, it's good fun deciding whether crying, puking, or laughing is most appropriate.

On the other hand, the sentimentality of the familial quirkiness and self-realization can be a bit much, and there's real danger in putting too much emphasis on being so different. It's already been put out to the world that dysfunction can wear a loveable face, and it's not that it can't bear repeating—but when you cast Alan Arkin as the grandfather again, it makes one wonder.

So let's not even get into picking on Sunshine for the ineffectiveness of one subplot, or the staggering lack of conclusion in another. Just put on your beer goggles, take the plunge, and hopefully, get it out of your system. You have needs, after all, and it's still the cutest thing at the party.