Ebert gets it exactly right:
"Junebug is a movie that understands, profoundly and with love and sadness, the world of small towns; it captures ways of talking and living I remember from my childhood, with the complexity and precision of great fiction. It observes small details that are important because they are details. It has sympathy for every character in the story and avoids two temptations: It doesn't portray the small-town characters as provincial hicks, and it doesn't portray the city slickers as shallow materialists. Phil Morrison, who directed this movie, and Angus MacLachlan, who wrote it, understand how people everywhere have good intentions, and how life can assign them roles where they can't realize them."
Junebug is a great movie that includes a pitch-perfect depiction of the lives of folks - both those who live in, and those who visit, a small North Carolina town. I have very rarely seen one so accurate, much less one that tells such a real and honest family story. The script, acting, shot selection, set design, music (by Yo La Tengo!) ... everything works together to capture these characters so well I could hardly believe it. It might not be the most entertaining movie of the year. But it's certainly one of the most real movies of the year. And, I'd wager, one of the 5 best US movies released in 2005. I'd never heard of the script writer or the director before, but this is astonishly good work. And all of the actors (not just Amy Adams who's won a bunch of critics prizes for her performance) turn in splendid work. I highly recommend this movie.
Posted by armand at January 20, 2006 12:49 PM | TrackBack | Posted to MoviesDitto. Big time. What a spectacular little journey. Such a bold film in so many ways. The simple honesty just floored me, and the refusal to surrender to cliche time and again was absolutely singular. Really, I was just sort of speechless. To get those performances out of a bunch of relative unknowns as a novice director . . . half the time, I felt like I was watching a documentary, and not in the sense of mockumentary signifiers, but just because the characters, while alien to me, seemed so eminently plausible. I do differ with you Armand on one point: I think it was just about the most entertaining movie I can think of from last year. Unless by entertaining, we're restricting ourselves to running around or blowing stuff up. I laughed hysterically a whole bunch of times and was transported to near grief as well. Pretty hard to do that in 100 minutes or so.
Posted by: moon at February 9, 2006 10:27 AM | PERMALINKOh, it's largely entertaining no doubt - but it's so much more than that too, and kind of quiet, so "entertaining" didn't strike me as the most apt description. But yes, it's really funny in parts. And the more I think about it the more I want Amy Adams to win that Oscar she's nominated for. She's hysterical (and touching)and this film deserves much more recognition than it has gotten.
Posted by: Armand at February 9, 2006 12:46 PM | PERMALINKoh wow, i didn't realize that until last night she was one of those nominees in roles i hadn't seen. she certainly deserves it. what a spectacular performance. (it was really entertaining as well to watch her casting tape, an extra on the DVD, because a) she's effing hot, and b) it shows that even then the director and she had a very clear handle on the role, since it plays not much differently than it did in the finished product -- she just made the role hers, i guess.)
Posted by: moon at February 9, 2006 01:49 PM | PERMALINK