Review

Review Date: 21-August-05
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Juicy

Junebug (2005)

I overheard a man at the theater call "Junebug" an "honest" film, and I can't think of a better word to describe it. Intelligently written by Angus MacLachlan, this fine ensemble drama illustrates how love comes in many forms and, simultaneously, how it's difficult for people to connect. Filled with scenes of everyday normalness and a couple that will make you laugh or cry, "Junebug" approaches the big issues of life with a gratifyingly low-key style.

The movie starts with a jolt (I have no idea what the opening images are about) and quickly introduces two characters whose union sets the stage for what follows. At her art gallery in Chicago, Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) falls at first sight for a handsome stranger named George Johnsten (Alessandro Nivola), who divulges in their first torrid moments that he hails from North Carolina. Six months later, the now-married couple heads south to his old stomping grounds so that Madeleine can pursue an eccentric painter of bizarre Civil War art (Frank Hoyt Taylor). They also pay a visit to George's family, which proves to be a turning point in their relationship.

There's an obvious contradiction between the sophisticated, foreign-born Madeleine and the down-home, Baptist relations of her spouse, but "Junebug" avoids exaggerating either side. Certainly the Johnstens are foursquare American folk, but each of them reminded me of someone I have met despite a limited experience of the South. The patriarch (Scott Wilson) is one of those silent-but-secretly-observant types, so the household is run by his wife Peg (Celia Weston), who has a firm grasp on how the world should work and enough backbone to keep it in line. Deciding that her new daughter-in-law is not only an outsider, but living proof of an inferiority complex that ill fits her eldest son, she refuses Madeleine any overtures of affection. Not so Peg's other daughter-in-law, Ashley (Amy Adams), a bubbly young mother-to-be who idolizes Madeleine as everything grand and cultured in the sphere of womanhood. Ashley comes off like an overwhelming ditz at first, but she wins a body over by being so genuine in her good-naturedness and so patient with her husband (Benjamin McKenzie), who bangs around the house in a perpetual snit that she prefers to consider a "phase." Thanks in large part to Adams, Ashley's modest hopes and worries become central to the picture, emphasizing the notion that home is (or should be) where the heart is.

Bumping up against these people — so new to her, so nostalgic to him — forces Madeleine and George to look at each other more seriously than their romance has demanded so far. His mother is right: they have nothing in common, unless you count a constant and highly satisfying craving for each other's bodies (which, by all means, you should). By the end of the film they have fallen into place as yet another example of the mystery of love and connection, even more than they previously realized. You can't be sure what will happen to them, or any of the characters, as they make their way into the future, but "Junebug" leaves you with the feeling that they won't go their road alone.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.