Review of Junebug (2005) by Michael Y — 26 Aug 2011

What can I say? I love these little indie dramas. I love the atmosphere outside of cities and closer to home. Junebug is just that, and the actors pull of the home feeling perfectly.

Madeleine, a gallery owner spacificly for "outside art", and her newly wed husband, George, go to rural North Carolina to gain the favor to sell a man's art. Coincidentally, Georges's family lives in North Carolina, so the two stay with them. There, Madeleine is overwhelmed by George's judgemental mother, antisocial father, George's jealous and angry brother who is about to have a baby with his wife who ABSOLUTELY ADORES Madeleine and obsesses over her. But in a cute way. This is a movie about alienation and human connection, or at least the lack of it. What's interesting is how unexepted we feel Madeleine is when with the family, and no wonder, she marries a man who she thinks she knows everything about yet finds out there's a lot she doesn't. But then again, all these characters have the same problem. But one thing is for sure, the actors play out their roles BRILLIANTLY. The really play off eachother and connect like a family would. Their performances feel really natural. And there's an absolutely heartbreaking scene between Amy Adams and Alessandro Nivola that is INCREDIBLY touching and powerful because their relationship and feelings truely feel real. THis movie has some GREAT acting.

This is an indie movie so there's nothing fancy about it. Alough the scenes do truely feel natural. The directing in this movie is wonderful. The direction of the actors is great, and who the camera is directed to at a certain moment is well planned out and edited. The pacing of the movie is very low and moodish, but not in a bad way but a brilliant way that gives the movie a sad but wonderful feeling. There are very destinctive moments of cinematography that feels very authentic and really puts a good mood into the movie. The small town locaction looks wonderful. There are, however, a lot of moments where you see shots of the neighborhood and the outdoors and, well, just locations where noone is around. It's kind of sad. You get this feeling that the characters are alone, there is no one, even when they're shots of beautiful things there is no one around to enjoy that beauty.

I love these kinds of movies. They're small, moody, but about PEOPLE. The entire cast just makes the movie POP in a great way. I couldn't leave my eyes off these characters and their relationships. Junebig is a wierd, slow, but ultimately rewarding movie that I personally enjoyed viewing.