Junebug

I've enjoyed reading a few of the "loved it" ratings and a few of the 'hated it" ratings of movies I've seen recently...and find myself able to agree with aspects of both. The "haters" here complain this movie is slow, plot less and stereotypes Southerners. Some of that is true...this is definitely a character study, slice-of-life, indie film. Some viewers look forward to that, and are pleased when everything including the kitchen sink is not forced into a script.

The strength of this film is the interface between characters. I found them quirkily individual enough to be believable. Amy Adams positively inhabits the role of a strong, faithful, but childish, young mother, and her interactions with an intellectual, worldly, professional sister-in-law are touching, and funny. The interactions between the controlling Southern mother with her silent but wise husband and her redneck son are credible and well enough written. Also, there is a somewhat crazy, but highly inspired visionary artist....and that is a frightening and accurate portrayal.

Unfortunately, there are character inconsistencies, and the film does seem to linger in the sadder aspects of the story more than I would've liked, especially for a movie whose comic bits were so strongly done. It is not a broad comedy, but an investigation of goals and faith done through a brilliant cast who make you chuckle. Afterwards, the humor and heartache portrayed by Amy Adams' character is so wonderfully written and acted, I wished for a whole film just about her.

Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) is a successful Chicago dealer of outsider art. She has a trip to see an artist and takes the opportunity to meet her husband George (Alessandro Nivola)'s family 30 minutes away in North Carolina. His mother Peg (Celia Weston) is bossy and his father Eugene (Scott Wilson) is quiet. His younger brother Johnny (Benjamin McKenzie) is a resentful loser with flighty pregnant wife Ashley (Amy Adams). Ashley intends to name the baby Junebug.

It's very odd to realize that Amy Adams is not the lead actress because she's the main thing I remember about this film. She's a complete whirlwind overpowering everybody and everything. She's crazy hilarious with every facial expression and desperate neediness. The other takeaway for me back then was that Benjamin McKenzie can reasonably act. Watching again, Amy Adams is still hilarious and her energy really drives the movie. Director Phil Morrison's style is quiet indie. It probably could have helped to work more towards Amy Adams' quirky tone.

Greetings again from the darkness. Director Phil Morrison and Writer Angus MacLachlan collaborated on "Tater Tomater", which was featured at 1990's Sundance Festival. Together again, they have created a nice home-spun tapestry of family relationships. Despite its seemingly bizarre group of characters, we find ourselves easily relating to the difficulties in understanding and communicating with those in our family - those who should be most like us.

The filmmakers have assembled a cast of mostly veteran actors, but no Hollywood "stars". The most recognizable is Benjamin McKenzie ("The O.C.") who plays the simmering quiet little brother whose wife, played brilliantly by Amy Adams, is with child. Others include Embeth Davidtz as the wife of prodigal son George (Alessandro Nivola, who played Pollux Troy in the underrated "Face/Off"); an electric Frank Hoyt Taylor as the off-center civil war artist David Wark; and veterans Celia Weston and Scott Wilson as the parents of the feuding boys. As a point of interest look for Saturday Night Live alum Victoria Jackson as one of the nurses.

Although the film's heart and soul is the theme of family and the stress it creates, while somehow producing the draw that cannot be ignored, it also does a really wonderful job of capturing the spirit of southern small time living. At the center of all of this is Amy Adams, who literally steals the film as the eternally optimistic and determined "firecracker" Ashley. Her performance is outstanding, multi-layered, thought-provoking and genuine. Kind of doubt that this film will receive the necessary attention to have her nominated for an Academy Award, but she deserves one.

This is a necessarily slow-moving film that can be uncomfortable to watch, while at the same time causing you to smile, laugh and even tear up.

"Junebug" is a ruefully sweet, clear-eyed take on the going home genre that usually takes the form of prodigal child returning due to a funeral or serious illness with guilt hanging in the air until it ignites an explosion.

Instead, debut writer Angus MacLachlan has brought "George" home to North Carolina as a coincidence of his new wife's job and life has gone on without him and will continue when he's gone again.

Debut director Phil Morrison does a lovely job of visually establishing how each person in the family has staked out their physical space and roles within the family, even as sounds and light uncomfortably carry through the walls and beyond the rooms. I haven't seen every inch of a normal house used as a movie setting so intensively since "The Brothers McMullen," complete with blowing up an air mattress in the nursery.

Those scenes contrast with how different the family members are outside that house, such as the sullen, angry brother (Benjamin McKenzie) perking up comfortably with his fellow warehouse workers and "George" easily fitting back into a church service.

While the usual is to have the spouse's estranged family be colorfully ethnic or straight-laced WASP as a comic contrast, a la the "Meet the Fockers" mode, here they are complicated rural folk and are not condescended to, even as no good deed goes unpunished. Both sides receive their share of mockery and sympathy from the story; everyone's hypocrisy and humanity are revealed and at least two scenes bring tears to the eyes, one touching and the other sad.

While everyone is speaking English, the miscommunications abound, though it is a bit heavy-handed to have the English-bred wife coach the brother on "Huckleberry Finn," let alone her bizarre negotiations with a probably crazy local artist. Each either takes a comment too literally or misinterprets passive aggressive silences; what people don't say comes to be more important than what they do say, as even Amy Adams' wonderfully chatty character is warm-heartedly mature and caring.

The big, annoying weakness of the film, and keeps it from being a satisfying film, is the vague character of the prodigal son. While it seems that his older, folk art collecting wife probably lusted after him at first sight because he was the first cute straight guy who walked into her gallery (and I assume there is some significance that he buys the painting that doesn't make him happy), their quickie marriage seem to be based only on newlywed randiness, as everything seems to turn them on. Taking after his father busy woodworking away in the basement, he pretty much sloths out in the house or car, so it is confusing hypocrisy when he suddenly steps up to the plate in an emergency, accuses his wife of not putting family first and then bails on the follow up.

Alessandro Nivola well portrays a literal golden boy who is, of course, his mother's heart's delight and in her eyes can do no wrong (even he acknowledges that his new wife is bound to discover his faults), though people who have different positions in their families may interpret the sibling behaviors in different ways. But the film only shows us how people react to him and very little about him other than his casual sense of entitlement, though the mostly silent guy to guy communication is realistic.

Other than one superbly beautiful hymn sung by Nivola (he also sang well as rock star in "Laurel Canyon"), the soundtrack does not take the T. Bone Burnett traditional songs approach, but instead has a score by Hoboken, NJ's own Yo La Tengo that doesn't take sides between the country or the big city.

A very intelligent script, with direction that does it justice. Rather than spelling out exactly what we're supposed to be thinking and feeling at every moment, the filmmakers respect the audience's ability to infer meaning from the mood and tone, from the light in a frame or the ambient noise of a scene (or, for that matter, from the complete silence in which we occasionally are allowed to contemplate the house and small town where the story is set). As for the actors, they must have been thrilled to have the chance to play such complex, well-rounded characters, each of them at times being fine and even something like noble, at other times frustrating and perhaps even cruel. Just like real people, in other words. Amy Adams deserves the praise she's received for a role that could have easily been a caricature, but I'd like to also mention Embeth Davidtz for her precise and empathetic work in another part that might have easily been done in a hackneyed way.

All through this film, there are moments where we fear that its makers are going to settle for the cliché, but they never do. By the end, we feel that we've learned a great deal about the characters and the community which produced them, and we also sense that we'll never fully grasp all of their mysteries and contradictions. Very fine work from everyone involved.