Salt Lake Tribune Review
Unlike most movies set in the South, "Junebug" gets the South.
Not the stereotyped funny South of "The Dukes of Hazzard" and "Sweet Home Alabama," or the creepy South of "The Skeleton Key" or "House of Wax." No, this comedy-drama, which won acclaim at this year's Sundance Film Festival, depicts the real South - good people and bad people, surface gentility and undercurrents of resentment, and the specter of the Civil War always just outside one's peripheral vision.
Madeleine (
Embeth Davidtz) and George (
Alessandro Nivola) are sophisticated Chicago newlyweds on a trip to North Carolina. She is looking to sign a primitive "outsider" artist (
Frank Hoyt Taylor) for her art gallery - and she's meeting George's family for the first time. They include George's parents, quiet Eugene (
Scott Wilson) and sour Peg (
Celia Weston), George's brooding and resentful brother Johnny (Benjamin McKenzie, from "The O.C.") and Johnny's happily pregnant wife, Ashley (
Amy Adams).
Madeleine jumps into the in-laws' life with both feet, shocking everyone with her European two-cheek kisses and casually calling people "darling" and "sweetheart." Ashley is excited, offering to paint Madeleine's nails and do all those girlfriend-bonding things. The rest of the family is more reserved, while George conspicuously avoids as much direct contact with his relatives as he can manage.
In his first feature film (but not his last, one can hope), writer-director
Phil Morrison captures not only the flavors of Southern living - from church suppers to hollerin' contests - but a sense of what it's like to be Southern. There is a sense not only of Southern hope (in Ashley's bubbly personality) but also of rancor against Northerners (as evidenced by the permanent chip on Johnny's shoulder).
Davidtz ("Schindler's List," "Matilda") is a charmer as the always enthusiastic but slightly uncomprehending city slicker. But the discovery here is Adams, who won a special jury prize at Sundance as the always sunny Ashley. She's the one who makes "Junebug" a gem worth seeking out.
The rundown: A trip home brings Southern comfort and discomfort in this well-observed comedy-drama.
Synopsis: A dealer in outsider art threatens the equilibrium of her middle-class in-laws in North Carolina. Madeline is a go-getting art gallery owner from Chicago, recently married to George, a near-perfect Southern beau. When Madeline needs to close a deal with a reclusive North Carolina artist, George introduces her to his family: prickly mother Peg, taciturn father Eugene, cranky brother Johnny, and Johnny’s pregnant, childlike wife Ashley, who is awe-struck by her glamorous sister-in-law. Madeline's presence exposes the fragile family dynamics as hidden resentments and anxieties surface.
