Junebug

Starring Embeth Davidtz, Alessandro Nivola, Amy Adams and Benjamin McKenzie

Written by Angus MacLachlan

Directed by Phil Morrison

It’s not that I looked down on them, or thought myself superior to them. I accepted long ago that I come from a long line of hillbilly farmers. It’s just that, seeing them all gathered together to bid farewell to our matriarch, they all looked so alien. Their lives were utterly removed from anything I had experienced in my relatively comfortable middle-class upbringing. We had nothing in common but our last names and some strands of DNA. But they were, nonetheless, my family—and if one of them needed a kidney, or a place to stay or help with bail money, then I’d be there. A true family member is someone who, when you come knocking on the door, has to take you in.

Such is the premise of Junebug, director Phil Morrison’s excellent elegy on class and familial divides. Junebug is often a strange film; it veers jerkily between comedy and drama, and sometimes it’s just a bubble off plum. But it’s also the most piercing exploration of family dynamics since Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies, and that means it’ll end up on a lot of top-ten lists— including mine.

Embeth Davitz stars as Madeleine, an urbane Chicago art dealer who specializes in bringing folk artists to the blue-state elites who make up her clientele. At an auction, she meets George (Alessandro Nivola), a smooth-talking Southerner with smoldering good looks who promptly sweeps her off her feet and into bed, where they screw like spider monkeys until they pause just long enough to get married a week later.

A few months go by. Madeleine discovers a North Carolina folk artist by the name of David Wark (Frank Hoyt Taylor), whose paintings rather resemble the work of the Reverend Howard Finster (painter of the album cover for Talking Head’s Little Creatures), except that Wark’s paintings depict Civil War battlefields full of such charming details as Robert E. Lee’s gigantic engorged penis spraying bullets into Union soldiers. As fate would have it, George’s family is from the same part of North Carolina. So the newlyweds decide to kill two birds, as it were, by taking a road trip to meet and sign Wark to a representation deal while stopping by the homestead to introduce Madeleine to George’s family. What could go wrong?

At this point, the film could have simply degenerated into Meet the Parents-style parody and farce. But Junebug has other aims in mind. Rather than introducing George’s family as a passel of dimwitted yokels, the film reveals an unremarkable working-class Southern family with a typically dysfunctional household dynamic. George’s mother Peg (Celia Weston) is a world-class passive-aggressive ballbuster who long ago forgot the meaning of judge not. His father Eugene (Scott Wilson) is an amiable sort who may be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and spends most of the movie looking for his Phillips-head screwdriver. His brooding younger brother Johnny (Benjamin McKenzie) says nothing, resents everything and everyone, and spends his free time underneath his pickup truck. The warm center of the family unit is Johnny’s pregnant wife Ashley (Amy Adams), a sunny dynamo who talks non-stop because no one else in the house has anything to stay.

As the film progresses, layers of truth unfold. Madeleine tries her best to engage the family, but it becomes clear that they resent her beauty and sophistication— except for Ashley, who worships Madeleine from the moment she lays eyes on her. We also see that Madeleine and George really know nothing about each other; indeed, they spend most of their time apart, meeting only at night to screw like spider monkeys on the air mattress. We see that George feels strong ties to his family even as they embarrass him. The family seethes with conflict, all of it unspoken and unresolved— just like your family, and mine.

Junebug was written by playwright Angus MacLachlan— a rather remarkable feat when you consider how un-playlike this picture is. The film is all observation and subtext; at no point does anyone give a speech, and there are no overt arguments or dramatic clashes— except for one climactic scene in a hospital room, where a character reveals depths of spirit and purpose that are humbling in their heroism. Unlike most Hollywood product, in which you could replace the actors with fichus trees and no one would notice, the actors here are critical to the film’s success, as line shadings and body language convey what pages of dialogue couldn’t. If the film has an MVP, it’s Amy Adams, who won a deserved special jury prize at Sundance for her performance as Ashley, the emotional center of the film. Hers is an astounding piece of work.

Morrison’s camera, meanwhile, functions in turn as observer, sociologist, psychologist and voyeur, and at times we’re viewing moments in these characters’ lives so personal that we have the urge to turn away in shame. The insights we gain into this family are often subtle, and not every question is answered. That means the film won’t appeal to surface-dwellers. But if you love movies, you’ll love Junebug. By turns whimsical and piercing, direct and obtuse, the film reminds us that, as much as Hollywood has devolved into a town full of pimps whoring out garish spectacle to teenagers who every year become harder to get off, great films will continue to be made as long as an audience exists to appreciate them.

The film also reminds us that, no matter how far you run away, you can never escape family. Your mother may be crazy, your father may be a drunken lout, your brother may secretly wish you had never been born and your cousin may be in jail, but they’re a part of you, and you of them. Give what you can to them, take from them whatever they offer, and love them as much as you’re able. It took me a long time, but I’ve embraced my redneck heritage. Perhaps somewhere in heaven, there’s a gleaming doublewide waiting for me with a hound dog out front and a refrigerator full of beer inside. There are worse ways to spend eternity.

September 22, 2005
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