Junebug

[Gamblour.]

the fact that the film takes place in the South is I guess just a bonus. It could work in any sort of super suburban, hermetically sealed setting. These people are bored and quiet and have extremely high pressures to maintain minute social norms, or to at least avoid being different. The British lady loses from the get go because she is so different. I think the beauty comes from the OC guy, believe it or not, in the scene where he sees (shit I've completely forgotten what it is) whatever animal on the television and frantically, angrily starts to try and record it for his wife. That he could apparently care less, but becomes almost violent about this one thing that he knows may bring some happiness to his wife, I just found it so poignant.

I don't think one should look for what this film is trying to be. Everything I love, I love in the things we learn about the people, that the main guy, although he seems to be a douchebag, can sing beautifully and is well-known for it. We discover it as his British fiancee does. This movie is so beautiful because these people are so sad but trying to be happy.

[modage]

i'll add another 'eh' on the pile.  it seemed typically sundance film to me: some good parts surrounded by a less good film.  it's worth a rental but not much else. 

[Gamblour.]

no, the pod theory is an eh. This film is beautiful.

[xerxes]

it's a meerkat

[modage]

it didnt bother me.  i enjoyed myself while i was watching it, but like so many sundance films it was just totally forgettable.  by the end it just didnt say anything to me.  it was kind of like 'so what?'

[ono]

I saw this movie a second time the other day and I just wanted to reiterate how wonderful it is.  Nuanced is the word.  It's not that Me and You and Everyone We Know beats you over the head with anything (comparisons to this and Squid and the Whale because to me, they are the most similar stylistically -- Squid being more sarcastic and dry, Me and You being more ethereal), but this film is just so subtle in some of the things it does with actions of its characters that it requires at least two viewings to fully appreciate.  It will never see any "best of all time" lists, and it won't even break that many top ten lists this year (probably because it's so subtle), but I still can't stop thinking about it.

It's not just the matter of Amy Adams wonderful performance, because everyone was great in the film.  It was the wonderful screenplay, and the direction by a newcomer, Phil Morrison.  I will elaborate on that: he was able to utilize minimal resources and capitalize on them.  He was able to get out of his actors just what performance he was looking for with each line, gesture, facial expression.  The father was a prime example, but the two sons were key here as well.  There's no point in talking about Amy Adams because her performance was so amazing, but these three men who surround her during the film point to what makes it work.  The father knows everything even though he says nothing.  This is shown in his little actions, little lines here and there that shows he's aware of his daughter's emotions, wants, and needs.  Ditto with Johnny, in the most telling scene of the film: when he tries and fails to tape the meerkat documentary for Ashley.  There's also the matter of the masturbation scene, juxtaposed with Johnny and Madeline's scene reading Huck Finn at the table and Johnny coming on to her.  They all want something but are unable to go for it because of an inability to expresss it.  Madeline has triggered something in all of them with her exotic nature, though.

Some of you ask, "So what?"  Here's one possible answer: all the greatest films are about human nature.  They pose questions, make you think, and while they may not be able to answer them, they come damn near close.  This film shows a common juxtaposition, a fish-out-of-water story, and sprinkles it with touches that brings to life these characters that aren't caricatures by any means.

[Gold Trumpet]

Some of you ask, "So what?"  Here's one possible answer: all the greatest films are about human nature.  They pose questions, make you think, and while they may not be able to answer them, they come damn near close.  This film shows a common juxtaposition, a fish-out-of-water story, and sprinkles it with touches that brings to life these characters that aren't caricatures by any means.

A late responce, but....

What questions does this film pose? What thoughts does it make you think about? The general "human nature" bid isn't convincing me. This is not to say the film  doesnt have personal meaning for you, but I'm looking for more detail.

I think people too easily accept these types of film. They are about everything and nothing at all. They are quiet and make no attempts to rock the boat. When people are asked why they think they are good they point out all the over top films and ask, 'Why not?'. OK, I want someone to actually answer 'why' because a film just representing the opposite of what is manufactured isn't necessarily good.

[MacGuffin]

South bound
As his debut family drama, Junebug, opens in the UK, director Phil Morrison talks to Geoffrey Macnab about his admiration for Mike Leigh, the eccentricities of his hometown and why southern US audiences are too polite to be honest about his film
Source: film.guardian.co.uk

Phil Morrison's likable debut feature, Junebug, shares the same benign attitude toward its characters as its pregnant heroine, Ashley, played by the Oscar-nominated Amy Adams. "God loves you just the way you are, but too much to let you stay that way," she tells her boorish husband, in a line borrowed from a Methodist preacher that could serve as a motto for the movie itself.

Set in the Deep South, Junebug begins in Meet the Parents style, with ambitious young Chicago art dealer Madeline (Embeth Davidtz) visiting and utterly failing to connect with her new southern in-laws. She is savvy, sophisticated, extremely knowledgeable about art, but completely inept when it comes to making small talk. Her self-centred young husband (Alessandro Nivola) does nothing to help her bridge the divide.

Morrison's little corner of North Carolina, where he grew up, is full of folk who (at least to outsiders) look very eccentric. There is the man who likes to "holler", a champion yodeller who is shown early on in full song. Then there is the local artist, a self-educated idiot-savant who specialises in apocalyptic paintings of the American civil war (full of blood, severed heads and penises). A frosty-faced neighbour is played by one of the director's former schoolteachers.

Junebug hones in on social embarrassment and class tension in much the same way as Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party or Life Is Sweet. Morrison, it turns out, is a fervent admirer of Leigh and recently went to see his new play, Two Thousand Years in London. "What is really special about it, and that was inspiring to me, is his compassion for everyone - as opposed to this political hierarchy of compassion that depends on economic circumstance," Morrison enthuses. "That's what Mike Leigh taught me. This idea that we're all alike, and that's what is good, is bullshit. What you learn from him is, no, no, we're vastly different. The more we look at each other, the more we realise that we are vastly different - but that's no reason not to have understanding and compassion for each other. I don't think the world is easy for anybody."

Morrison, who is 37, acknowledges that Junebug may appear to peddle stereotypes of the Deep South, but argues that the film is "burrowing" beneath the cliches. "Movies that claim they dispel stereotypes, all that they actually do is avoid them," he reflects in his laidback drawl. "That's fine as long as they avoid stereotypes in a way that is truthful and honest - and not a matter of self-consciously making this guy who lives in the south a Rhodes scholar."

Besides, he might add, his film is even-handed, as alert to the foibles of a character such as Madeleine, the art dealer, as it is to those of the Southern Baptists in Winston-Salem. There is something moving and heroic about the way Morrison's characters strive to overcome their differences. The least sympathetic figure is the one audiences might normally be expected to identify most closely with - the good-looking, socially confident George (Nivola). "He doesn't try," Morrison says disapprovingly. "He shuts down and doesn't take much responsibility for anything."

By complete contrast, American audiences have been rooting for the ingenuous, ever-optimistic Ashley. "At first glance, she is unbelievable," the director says of a character who sees the bright side in everything. "The script demanded that Ashley behave in ways that sometimes we forget people do behave. People read it and said that it was really entertaining, but that in a movie supposed to resemble real life, she can't ask nine questions in a row without waiting for an answer!"

Amy Adams, who played Leonardo DiCaprio's breathless fiancée in Catch Me If You Can, plays Ashley beautifully, and without a hint of condescension. It's a performance that has won her countless nominations and best supporting actress awards at film festivals across the US. There is a wonderful moment early on in the film, when she is first introduced to Madeline. "I was born in Japan," her new sister-in-law tells her. "You were not!" Ashley, who has never left her home town, replies, as if this is the most astounding thing she has ever heard.

Junebug began life as a play by Morrison's childhood friend, Angus MacLachlan, and was set almost entirely within the kitchen of the family home. Morrison says that what he warms to in MacLachlan's writing is its enigmatic, quietly provocative tone. "He raises questions which I don't know the answers to. But I know where to search for the answers."

Morrison grew up in Winston-Salem but moved to New York to study film. Prior to Junebug, he was best known for shooting pop promos for bands such as Sonic Youth and the Lemonheads, but now says he feels he has little flair for three-minute music videos.

What distinguishes Junebug from most other debut features is how oblique it is. Morrison doesn't try to dazzle us with flashy camera movements or hip dialogue; if this is a comedy, it is a very subtle and slow-burning one. The director is bemused that some audiences have laughed at the hollering scenes in the movie, and briefly thought of deleting it when he heard people chuckling. "I didn't think for a moment that that was going to be funny to people, but it is," he says. "But, OK, let the chips fall where they may." He doesn't really know what North Carolina audiences think of his film. "The only way I'll find out if they didn't like it is on the internet. They'll never tell me to my face, especially down there: everyone is really polite."

Unlike many young indie film-makers with an early hit on their hands, Morrison doesn't seem remotely ambitious. It is well over a year since he finished Junebug, and he is still not in any hurry to embark on a new film. "I'm probably going to take it pretty slowly," he says. "I don't feel that I have to be making a movie constantly. I tend to never do anything immediately."

He is based in New York, but still sees himself as a southern film-maker. "I think about living down there a lot. It [the art scene] is really fertile." In the meantime, he would rather "make no movie at all" than direct something just for the sake of it. Besides, he adds, there are plenty of decent film-makers around. "There are so many good movies out there waiting to be seen that if I'm not the one who ends up making them, I'm not really going to sweat about it."