Junebug (2005) - 9.5/10

Junebug is an extra-ordinary film by Independent Film Director Phil Morrison. It has scenes of such power that they make you cry not because the characters are delivering lengthy monologues about pain and suffering (as often happens in the movies, especially Bollywood movies, K3G anyone) but because they are scenes of such emotional weight and implication that unless you are the most insensitive of people you would react in that way. This is so different from the usual emotional manipulation that most viewers are subjected to in other movies, that it literally elevates this movie into the realms of greatness. The films of Ingmar Bergman and Satyajit Ray immediately come to mind.

Like many of Ray's and Bergman's films this movie is simply the story of a family. But that is what is exactly so complex about it isn't it? For as it stands, it does not look-away or simplify or excessively dramatize what goes on in a family and each of the central characters is given such a complete persona that you become aware that you are watching something real and true. The keyword of course is persona and not personality, because it takes you a while to figure some of these people out like in real-life and in some cases (like the character of elder son) you may never figure out, and this is what makes this all so very intriguing.

The movie begins with Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) who is an Art dealer in Chicago. Madeleine grew up as the daughter of a frequently traveling diplomat so it is not clear what her conception of family is. She meets George (Alessandro Nivola) at a benefit, they fall in love and are married within a week. Six months later she needs to visit a small town in North Carolina to meet the artist David Wark (Frank Hoyt Taylor), and George goes along so that the couple can spend time with his family, who live not too far from Wark's.

George is the elder son in the family. His brother Johnny (Benjamin McKenzie) is a college-dropout and married to his high-school sweetheart Ashley (Amy Adams). There is obvious tension between George and Johnny, which seems to stem from jealousy, but is never very clear what it is. Johnny and Ashley are also having issues (and it might be that Johnny is the person who is in question in both cases), and Ashley that the child she is pregnant (in fact it is the would be child's name that is to be Junebug) with will lead to a change in Johnny ("God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay that way." She says at one point). Peg (Celia Weston) and Eugene (Scott Wilson) are the parents who have found a way of living successfully with each other through the years: Peg is a critical and over-bearing woman, and Eugene has learnt to accept this and mostly to recede into silence and his carpentry (Peg herself spends time doing great arts and crafts). Are the parents a happy couple? I would hesitate to presume anything.

The city couple's arrival causes a small storm of sorts. Johnny grows angrier. Peg is critical. Eugene is much the same. George recedes into sleep and tardiness. Ashley takes an instant liking to Madeleine, it appears that she has been starved of attention for long and is extremely happy to find a willing listener (but I make it sound much worse than it is portrayed). In the short time that they are there, George and Johnny (and us) get an opportunity to not only look at this family's life but also small town life in general: there is a baby shower, there are communions (and George surprises his wife by singing a hymn; it seems like once George returns to the family setting, it is Madeleine who is the outsider, even to him); and there are scenes involving the artist Wark (who draws white faces on black people in his paintings because he has never met any African-American and cannot draw what he has not seen); all this are interspersed with occasional shots of the town, its people etc, and what effect that has is really worth watching.

Through all of this of course we have acute observation of the characters through the exceptional performance of the actors and the true writing of Angus MacLachlan. The dialogues aways ring true and never sound like they could have been said but by the person who said them. This is very much an actor's film because of its very nature and each of the central performances are wonderful. But Amy Adams is particularly good, and in a scene in a hospital room (a conversation between Ashley and George) delivers such raw emotion that it is hard not to become a part of her experience. There are other scenes of particular power as well: between Eugene and Madeleine as she deals with the events of the day, they don't say anything; between Johnny and Madeleine as she takes pains to help him write a paper about Huckleberry Finn, he has to that point only read Cliff's notes on the subject and not read the book, the conversation extends to beyond the book, meanwhile Ashley masturbates partly in an attempt to stay up but mostly otherwise and her yearning is palpable, Eugene is also part of this scene and how he is so is what makes this a great film; there are also episodes of George and Madeleine making love while trying to make as little noise as possible, but it is not a successful enterprise, and Johnny in the next room (who resents his wife's weight due to her pregnancy) cannot sleep. All of these and more just show how good the combination of MacLachlan, Morrison and the actors at work here is.

Eventually, Ashley is ready to deliver and is taken to the hospital and it comes as a little bit of a shock to George (and us) that Madeleine will go instead to try and make a last ditch attempt at signing the artist Wark (who has been wooed by a New York hot-shot). But as Ebert points out if George were in Chicago he really would not have come down for Ashley's delivery. Moreover, what do we really know about Madeleine? And what does he? Why should this be so shocking?

In the end, all of the people on view behave as people do and we can sit back and consider their motives for doing so with little knowledge about what makes them tick. We will learn some things: that despite what we are led to believe Johnny loves Ashley (and this becomes clear in two wonderful scenes one involving meerkats and one with a phone conversation); that George and Madeleine are very much in love at the end; that the older couple is also content in their way; and that life goes on. But we will also be left with many questions: what is the future of Ashley and Johnny; what is George's real reaction to all of this, to his family, his upbringing, to his wife and to his own life; will the couple ever visit again anytime soon; will Madeleine really write to Ashley; and so on.

We will end up accepting these people as they are. Just the fact that we can understand them at some level shows two things: that we have not completely lost sight of our humanity and that this is a masterwork.

Junebug gets 9.5 in my book. The 0.5 is taken off because Madeleine and George were not revealed to be more than they were and because the editing could have been a little bit tighter (if only slightly). In fact, George is more of a mystery than when the film started. But then again, that is the point of the movie so I may give the 0.5 back at some point.