Review of Junebug (2005) by Kenneth L — 06 Apr 2012

This is a quiet but affecting little indie movie. It's less of a comedy or a traditional drama than a character study of an entire family. It's not absolutely hilarious, and it's not earth-shakingly dramatic, but it feels very astute and observant.

The plot, such as it is, is pretty simple. Madeleine, a sophisticated art dealer from Chicago (Embeth Davidtz) goes to rural North Carolina with her new husband George (Alessandro Nivola) to try to land a contract with a local artist. While they're there, they also visit her husband's small-town family for the first time ever. The movie mostly flows from the interactions between Davidtz's character and the family.

The movie could have gone for relatively easy culture-clash gags about fancy city people vs. Southern rubes, but chooses not to. Instead, we get a much more nuanced and understated portrayal of the characters and the way they really are. At the center of the film is Amy Adams's truly wonderful, Oscar-nominated performance as Ashley, the sister-in-law who lives with her husband in his parents' house. Ashley is nine months pregnant, not terribly educated or sophisticated, and incredibly good and sweet and innocent. She's a fantastic, instantly lovable character, and your sympathy for her really draws you into the movie. The rest of the cast is quite good too, though their parts aren't quite as juicy. Embeth Davidtz is a solid center to the movie, though her main job is just to react to the other characters. Nivola is decent as her husband. Benjamin McKenzie gives a very convincing performance as George's sullen brother, who is somehow married to the delightful Ashley. Interestingly, the movie actually works to make the character of the artist Madeleine wants to sign up (Frank Hoyt Taylor) very colorful and eccentric in his own right. It didn't really have to - his only essential function in the movie is to get Madeleine and George into North Carolina - but I appreciated how much thought was put into that character.

Visually, it's a fairly typical indie drama. There are a couple of odd choices by Phil Morrison in the directing that seem like artsy flourishes that ultimately don't contribute anything to the movie and could have been left out, but they don't ruin it or anything. Most of the scenes without Amy Adams's character are pretty good, and nearly every scene with her is absolutely fantastic, particularly the last one. If nothing else, this movie got her career launched, and it's definitely worth watching for that "a star is born" quality.