Movie-Junebug

A movie about an odd and repressed family, Junebug (2005) was a showcase for Amy Adams, whose role here really propelled her to stardom.

Madeleine and George are newly married, after a very short courtship, and are crazy about each other. She is an art gallery owner and goes to see a startling new artist in the south. It happens that this artist is also in the same town as George's family, and George (very reluctantly) agrees to turn the working trip into an opportunity for Madeleine to meet his family for the first time.

Now this family is not quite sure how to react to Madeleine, with her European/New York/Artsy manners (she greets each family member with a kiss on each cheek), and while they are used to their own odd manners, they are not accepting of another person's. Accept for Ashely, brother George's very pregnant wife, played by Adams.

Ashely is in permanent wonderment of the world, and cannot see things in a negative light...it simply seems to be contrary to who she is. George is a jerk to all the family, maybe most especially to Ashely, and yet she always sees him in a positive way. She is a ray of sunshine. But you get the feeling that she has to be this way to survive this family to which she now belongs. If she does not live in this manner, she will be consumed by the oddness and darkness that this family gives out.

And Madeleine and George go through their own self realization. Madeleine realizes that their courtship was so fast, she does not know much about George's past....like how much religion seems to be a part of his life. He too realizes that Madeleine will NEVER get the whole bible belt family values thing. She is who he met in New York, and she won't see the world differently. The interesting thing that is shown is what this means to the marriage.

Junebug is sometimes hard to watch, as people are constantly letting each other down and have no ways to pass the barriers that separate experiences have given them. Communication does not seem to be a solution, for they have no vocabulary for this, as embodied by George's taciturn father.

But it is an amazing movie, made more so by Adams' performance. Watch this and you will understand why she is one of the most in demand actresses right now.