Junebug Review
By David Kempler
Dysfunctional Family Southern Style
Southern Family Strife Lite
"Junebug" is the story of Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) and George (Alessandro Nivola) and their dual-purpose journey into a small North Carolina town. Madeleine is an owner of an art gallery in Chicago who goes down to North Carolina to try and convince nutty unknown artist David Wark (Frank Hoyt Taylor) to sign with her so that she can display his work. Coincidentally, George's parents and his brother and his wife live not too far from the nutty artist so naturally the traveling couple takes up temporary residence in the house George grew up in. And what an all-star cast of quirky family characters it is.
George's mom, Peg (Celia Weston) hasn't a kind word for anyone. His father Eugene (Scott Wilson) seems almost borderline autistic or a recovering stroke victim. His sentences are usually no longer than three words and he spends most of his time in his dimly lit home woodworking shop, yet doesn't appear to produce very much. George's younger brother Johnny (Benjamin McKenzie) is angry although it is unclear exactly why, other than his possibly being jealous of his more successful brother. But that fact alone could not be responsible for the rage he lives in. Also living in the house is Johnny's old high school sweetheart and now very pregnant wife Ashley (Amy Adams). She is terminally bubbly and not very bright but she is the most powerful force in "Junebug" and everything revolves around her.
There are some fine performances in "Junebug" but it only really works when Ashley is onscreen. Amy Adams does a great job keeping the film on course and she dominates the screen but not in a hogging look at me way. The weakest character is George. I'm not sure if it's a bad job of acting or his part was written poorly but George could have wandered off in the middle of the movie and it would have had very little impact on the story.
When Ashley goes to the hospital to give birth "Junebug" hits its climax and everyone does a decent job from that point on, even George, but there is one enormous problem: at no time do we really care what happens to any of the characters, save Ashley. This is not exactly great news when you're doing a character driven story.
"Junebug" is a well crafted, well written small film of family life that never takes off. Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the inevitable confrontation between George and Johnny. It's similar to waiting for fireworks to explode but all you get is a dud of a fizzle. If you want to kill a couple of hours, see it and enjoy some of the small town intricacies, but don't expect to get emotionally involved. You're probably better off going to your own family gathering and seeing real emotions.
