*Junebug

Directed by Phil Morrison
Written by Angus MacLachlan

I suspect that people who complain that there aren't any good movies out there because they can't find any at the local multiplex are the same people who complain that there aren't any good books out there because they can't find any at the Duane Reade (that's Sav-On for all you westies out there), or complain that there isn't any good music anymore because they can't find it on the radio. There's nothing wrong with the books that they sell at the drugstore, or the music that they play on the radio - they have their purpose, and I suppose they pretty much serve it, and their respective audiences are more or less satisfied, I guess, but if you need something a little more substantial than sappy beach reading or happy rolling music, you kind of have to look for it.

Friday night I go up to Lincoln Square to check out Broken Flowers, and of course it's sold out (have I ever once gone to Lincoln Square to see something in its opening weekend without buying tickets in advance online?). After calling my friend Tim to tell him that he needn't bother coming out (I found out later that this pissed him off), and spending a good five or ten minutes standing around like an idiot, wondering if I should just go home and watch videos, I sort of circuitously wandered down the street and found myself in front of Lincoln Plaza, toying the idea of watching 2046 even though I HATE WONG KAR WAI (don't even get me started), but the next two shows of that were already sold out as well. After once again wondering if I should just go home, I decided instead to buy a ticket for Junebug, a movie about which I knew nothing other than that it was supposed to be pretty good.

The tagline for the poster reads something like "Where the Red States meet the Blue States", which pisses me off because politics has nothing whatever to do with the movie (religion, definitely, but not politics). That and the weird pre-credits yodelling sequence really sets you up for a far different film than you wind up getting.

Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz), a Chicago art dealer, has to go down to North Carolina to seal an important deal with a reclusive "outsider" artist (Frank Hoyt Taylor), and sort of as an afterthought decides to take along her new husband George (Alessandro Nivola) so that she can meet her new in-laws, who live nearby. George is the absolute golden boy of his family, and they are not so much curious about who he has married as they are disappointed that he's left home. Of course, Madeleine's English accent and kiss-kiss big city airs immediately alienates everyone - everyone but Ashley (Amy Adams), the extremely pregnant wife of George's broody brother Johnny (Benjamin MacKenzie), who seems boundlessly fascinated by her.

At this point, you're thinking you know exactly what kind of movie this is going to be right? But this is no movie about crazy citygirl vs. the wacky countryfolk. Not by a longshot. What it is is a great film about family, about people, more specifically about all the quiet spaces in between people, if I may say so without getting shot.

Observe how much of the film takes place to shots of empty rooms and lawns, to conversations, arguments, and laughter overheard more than directly addressed. Listen to what (and how much) is being "said" after people stop speaking.

Excellent cast, including Alessandro Nivola, completely unrecognizable from his smarmy turns in pretty much anything else I can remember seeing him in - Jurassic Park 3, Time Code, Laurel Canyon. With his nice shirts, schoolboy haircut, and generally quiet demeanor, in fact, he reminded more of Christian Bale in Laurel Canyon than anything else. Benjamin MacKenzie, who according to the people sitting behind me is on some show on the WB or something, plays a young man so tightly coiled in his frustration and disappointment that he is beyond hating himself - half the time he doesn't even seem to recognize himself. Look at their faces when one of them throws a wrench at the other near the end of the film - the look on one of their faces is of complete horror, the look on the other conveying that the moment was long, long overdue.

If Amy Adams does not get an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting, it's only because the voters did not see the movie. At first she seems mere comic relief - that one person in every movie (and in everyone's life) who just a bit too chipper, too hummingbird, too puppydog, too loveable and loving - though by the end she reveals herself to be far smarter, and far sadder, than she would ever want anyone to believe.

Unthinkable that such rich depth of character is mined with such subtlety by two (basically) first-timers - Phil Morrison and Angus MacLachlan had previously collaborated on one short film, and Morrison had previously directed a few music videos and segments of Comedy Central's Upright Citizen's Brigade. To illustrate, there is one scene involving a video cassette that reveals more about the characters involved than most other writers and directors could reveal in an entire feature.

The more we learn about these characters, the more we realize that yes, this is a fish-out-of-water story, though by the end we're asking ourselves, which is the fish, and what exactly is the water?

What I liked best about Junebug is that we are never forced or manipulated into liking, or disliking, anybody. Morrisson and MacLachlan shows us these people as they are, develops them far fuller than one would expect in a 100-minute span, then wisely leaves it to us to make up our own minds about how we are supposed to feel about them, whether we like them or dislike them or are simply annoyed at or frustrated with them. Nobody gets off easy, and nobody gets out unscathed. Good choice, on their part - good, lovely, unassuming, unpretentious, unsentimental, melancholy, mysterious, bittersweet, wonderful choice. In my experience, most of the "issues" that we have with people, especially family, cannot even be put into words in 100 minutes, let alone examined, discussed, debated, and resolved. These characters will stay with you long after you leave the theater. Many of them may even be living in your home.

Musical score by Yo La Tengo, which went completely unnoticed by me, which means they did their job.