"I feel a special kinship with the American South," opines Embeth Davidtz's Madeline, an upper-class art dealer.
The word "kinship" opens a gigantic can of worms, especially when cross-referenced with the South. What defines a kin relationship? Is nature or nurturing more responsible for the people we consider kin?
Junebug explores kinship, but it occasionally (toward the beginning mostly) strays into the realm of "tries too hard". That isn't to say that the movie gets overtly didactic about the outsider-insider relationship between Madeline (Davidtz) and the southerners who fill out the cast.
The first five minutes of Junebug passionately demonstrates a love for the Wes Anderson aesthetic as many others do.
The 'quirky' (cringe) look, as I've previously mentioned, has established itself as the biggest fad since calling your movie "independent". As it exists in the opening parts of Junebug, it doesn't jive with the rest of the movie, and sticks out starkly.
Alessandro Nivola has moments of profound depth throughout. The axiom of never being able to go home again provides most of Nivola's struggle throughout. He holds a great deal of his pain in very capably, but when he does let go his strength shows in the striking contrast between the before and after.
Amy Adams stands head and shoulders above most other performances I've seen this year, playing her part as a real person, and not just a caricature of "the southern girl", thank god. She seems outrageous and socially retarded at times, but never unrealistically. The shock of the things she says and does comes only from the audience's prejudices toward a redheaded north Carolinian girl at face value.
The same prejudices come into play for her mother in law Peg (played with razor precision by Celia Weston), a woman who makes reference to a distinctly southern concept (in name at least) of how one "does" with others. Madeline's inappropriate relationship with her husband's brother lives fictitiously in his mind just as much as his mother's, but unlike Madeline, momma knows what brother Johnny has in mind.
Sadly, Junebug is suffering the same fate other "movies that make you think" are stuck with: limited release. This is a film that would have played great to southern audiences, but the theatre chains are less concerned with regional marketing and distribution than the Montreal Expos were with getting to the World Series.
It's got its imperfections, but it's certainly not a film with serious flaws. If you missed it theatrically, catch it on DVD, it's better than the most mainstream movies you've seen this year.