Junebug begins with the meeting of Madeline (Embeth Davidtz), an art dealer, and George (Alessandro Nivola). The two immediately hit it off and a week later they’re married. The abbreviated courtship fast forwards six months when the couple find themselves in a rural North Carolina town so Madeline can scout the work of David Wark (Frank Hoyt Taylor), an artist whose paintings depict Civil War battlefields with floating dog heads and other assorted oddities. Madeline’s taste in artwork is a little different than you might expect; she deals in what she calls “Visionary Art” or, in layman’s terms, art created by the insane and the mentally challenged. This expedition serves as the vehicle for the movie’s main plot, Madeline meeting her new husband’s family.
From here, the movie spirals into a set of almost cliché Southern stereotypes. This initially sets up comedic situations. One of the more enjoyable comedic elements is Ashley (Amy Adams), a chatty and very pregnant young girl. Compared to the other characters in the film, Ashley turns out to be the most enjoyable – especially given her completely random lines and insistence that there always be talking in the house. Ashley is complemented by her angst-ridden husband, Johnny (Benjamin McKenzie), who is just as odd as his wife, though not nearly as perky.
The presence of Benjamin McKenzie, best known for his role on The OC, is likely to draw interest from younger viewers, though I can already say that Junebug probably won’t appeal to most of them. While the movie is, in some part, a comedy, the humor is a little more highbrow at times. In addition, Madeline’s presence soon disrupts the family and exposes just how fragile and, well, screwed up it really is, causing it to become more of an adult drama.
I wasn’t that enthused about Junebug after my first viewing. After a second time, I found myself enjoying everything just a little more. Still, the film does have its flaws; namely in the way of characters who really don’t grow all that much throughout. A few make incremental strides, though at the end of the movie, most are still stuck in the same place they were at the beginning.
To me, Junebug feels like a typical Independent film; it is offbeat and enjoyable but you really have to watch it at least twice in order to grasp everything the film has to offer.
