Junebug opens with the warbled songs of old men calling (for hogs? birds? to supper? to prayer?). It’s the sound that signals dinner is ready, that informs children and favored pets that it is time to return home. Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) heeds the call, tracking George (Alessandro Nivola) through an auction at her “outsider” art gallery in Chicago. A passionate physical relationship ensues. While Madeleine is in pursuit of a North Carolina “naïve” painter, the newly-married couple drops in on George’s family.
During the visit, George becomes a cipher, leaving Madeleine to navigate the family on her own. George’s father Eugene (Scott Wilson) is only partially present; his mother Peg (Celia Weston, who has played this role often and well), hangs back and judges. To her Madeleine is “too pretty. She’s too smart. That’s a deadly combination.” George’s unpredictable brother Johnny (brilliantly played by Benjamin McKenzie) is frustrated, awkward, and groping, uncomfortable around both George and his wife, and maybe a little dangerous.
George’s family is like something out of Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor. They are cranky and eccentric, maybe even slightly dull. What they all share is a soft spot for Johnny’s pregnant young wife Ashley (Amy Adams) who disarms everyone, coaxing out their better, gentler selves. She is the energetic heart of the house, immediately taking a shine to Madeleine and helping her to navigate the family’s sharp edges and potentially dangerous quirks.
Halfway through Junebug, I began wondering whether God was present. Whether the Jesus, whose assistance is called on for everything from curing disease to just getting through the day, was more tangible in some places than in others. Perhaps it was the North Carolina landscapes that inspired this thought. Those landscapes — heavy, usual, still — made me think about how some places and some people are sunk deeper down into the earth, perhaps tapping into a more primal spirituality. They inhabit the homeland that is so much bandied about these days.
The wide-open quality of Junebug, the long pauses between scenes, encouraged this kind of almost anthropological drift. Rooms full of cheap furniture, faux wood paneling and tacky, patterned wallpaper are photographed in an almost stately, documentary manner. Landscapes creep by, lawns hiss, you can almost feel the heaviness of the air, the slowness imposed by a thick heat. Sudden prayers feel awkward, every head bowing as the young mother-to-be blesses her baby shower. The film’s Christianity is environmental, surrounding and engulfing everything, rising out of the mud, a product of the heat.
