>>REVIEW
JUNEBUG
STARRING Amy Adams, Embeth Davidtz and Ben McKenzie
DIRECTED BY Phil Morrison
Opens Friday, October 21
Uptown Screen
Give Junebug its proper due for taking on a storyline we’ve seen time and again and tossing it on its ear.
Art dealer Madeline (Embeth Davidtz) meets, falls for and marries George (Alessandro Nivola) within the span of the film’s opening credits, and shortly thereafter heads down South with him to meet her in-laws. Mother Peg (Celia Weston) and father Eugene (Scott Wilson) open their door with typical Southern hospitality, mildly distrusting of the big city girl their church choir dreamboat son has brought home. George’s younger brother Johnny (The O.C.’s Benjamin McKenzie) can’t be bothered with Madeline – failing miserably at his job and attempts at school – but the pregnant Ashley (Amy Adams) holds the heart of the family together with positivity and recycled cliché affirmations. While not the most original setup for a family comedy, Junebug takes creative leaps with its chosen format, finding the clearest of truths in the most mundane of actions.
Filmed largely in slow, long takes (a touching pay-off waiting right before the fade), Junebug as a comedy doesn’t aim at laugh-out-loud punchlines, choosing instead to keep the jokes based on the film’s finely wrought characters. Adams in particular shines as the vacant-headed Ashley, desperate to keep her relationship with Johnny together whatever the cost, dodging his emotional warfare attacks with smiles and down-home wisdom. Shyly flowering in the shadow of the almighty Madeline, Ashley’s eyes hold her every word in desperate rapt attention.
Junebug best succeeds in a series of perfectly played scenes in which these characters’ proper Southern veneer cracks open. In his sole moment of saving grace, Johnny attempts to videotape a program for Ashley, busy upstairs with her baby shower (one of his few kindnesses to her or anyone else). Unable to get the tape to work, the program’s missed, his temper flares, and Ashley’s shower is all but over. Similar carefully layered moments throughout ensure Junebug rises above its flirtation with Monster-In-Law or Meet the Fockers territory.
As a first-time feature director, Phil Morrison displays a patience not common to new faces behind the camera. Expertly played, Junebug’s most monumental exchange is also its smallest, and in one scene in particular, an offhand gesture becomes one of the best onscreen moments of the year.
As the newlyweds speed back towards Chicago (invariably having learned far more about one another than perhaps they’d even hoped), small-town life resumes, leaving us with the question as to who’s living on firmer ground – those actually living the dream of the big city, or those still back home dreaming them. |
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