Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams) is a single mother who wishes to send her 8 year old son, Oscar (Jason Spevack) to a private school. She does house cleaning for a living. However, due to need of more funds, Rose takes up the job as a bio-hazard crime-scene cleaner and also employs her unreliable sister Norah (Emily Blunt) as her helper. With the help of one-armed hardware store owner Winston (Clifton Collins Jr.), Rose figures out the intricacies of the job and things start to take a positive turn. As the two work to tidy up the messes left behind by the chaotic lives of others, their job invokes up the memories of their own mother’s suicide which took place when they were kids.