Buckeye Road

Come Home

This weekend, we rented Junebug, which just came out on DVD release. I was cautious about seeing the film in theatrical release, I saw the good reviews but I was worried it would either more or less condescend to the North Carolina relations or make their golden-boy son and his cultured big-city wife -- who he married after knowing her for a week -- the easy, bad-guy outsiders.

But Junebug was so much more delicate, more textured, more acutely observed and profound. Imagine if Chekhov and Flannery O'Connor had a love child, that was both Protestant-minded and an independent film -- and that's Junebug. And it's almost never I get to invoke either of my favorite writers, so for me to bring in both here means a lot.

Amy Adams has been singled out for praise for her turn as the sunny, talky younger sister-in-law, Ashley. But the cast is full of treasures, from Scott Wilson's taciturn, puttering father, to Celia Weston's disapproving mother, who can do so much with a harrumph or a stare, to Ben McKenzie -- yes, the one from the O.C. -- so painfully caught between his lost youth and a wife he's not ready to live up to.

And let's not forget Alessandro Nivola as George, the favored older son come home with a strange wife after an absence of three years. In lesser hands, the filmmakers would have belabored about Why George Didn't Come Home, and perhaps also give him Some Issues in his Life in the Big City. Instead, we get a complex portrait of a man who loves his family, yet can't live near (let alone with) them -- who's always, as Ashley says, there when they need him the most.

And also Embeth Davidtz as Madeleine, who at first I thought was going to be all pretty and posh and Englishy and look down on her hubby's kin's red-state ways. What was nice is that yes, she was uncomfortable, but the family was never quite what she expected them to be, and the way that her easy friendship with Ashley gave way to harder choices -- leaving her to live with the consequences of her choices.

I don't want to give too much away, because this one is really worth seeing. A few favorite moments, though. One of the most extraordinary moments in any movie from last year is the scene at the church social where the pastor says they can't let George get away without giving them a hymn, and, with a couple guys on backup, George launches into an a capella version of "Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling."

On the surface, at first, there's Madeleine's pure surprise that George can sing so beautifully, with such feeling -- it's as if she's seeing him for the first time. But, as the song goes on, and you see his mother and other nodding along, mouthing the words, you're drawn into this lovely and mysterious and powerful moment in the life of this community, and in a way that's not cheesy or trite. It's a lovely and completely naturalistic depiction of faith as it's lived and experienced today -- such a rare thing in any narrative form.

Then there are the trees -- the film opens with a still shot of a deep forest of birches, and this shot comes in again, toward the end of the film, followed by a pull-back to show Madeleine sobbing in a deckchair as her father-in-law sits beside her, holding her hand. Like the filmic equivalent of Chekhov.

There are so many wonderful moments like this in the film, I won't go into them all here. Just go out and rent it already!

posted by BT @ 12:28 AM