I saw the quinessential "North Carolina" film,
Junebug (see earlier post below), still showing regionally, and found it as entrancing as many other reviewers. On the other hand, as someone who grew up in Pennsylvania, I didn't think it all that different from that quinessentially Northern state. Unless you believe the old joke that Pennsylvania has Pittsburgh on one side, Philadelphia on the other, and Alabama in between. You could pick up whole chunks of Pennsylvania and set them down in North Carolina and except for the accents, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference. As Americans, we're more homogenized than we sometimes like to believe.
This is an All-American movie. It's about us, period. The cultural differences it portrays, between sophisticates and the American heartland exist everywhere -- they are just as prevalent in Los Angeles vs. say San Bernadino or in Boston (read major American city) vs. the suburbs, and certainly between say New York City and almost anywhere else in the country. Yet, we are all so much more alike than different. I saw pieces of me in all the characters in "Junebug."
One of the reasons I still write film criticism, even though I write for a living--and I gotta tell you, it isn't the most lucrative gig in the world--is because I so disagree with so many of those I read. A Raleigh "News and Observer" annonymous critic disparaged the "empty rooms" which take up a few fleeting seconds of "Junebug." I think those empty rooms communicate the proverbial "pictures worth a thousand words." They're grounding in their plain American simplicity.
I have to consider a reviewer like the N&O one a 180-degree critic. Wherever he is, I'm over on the opposite side. I actually find the N&O's weekly film listing very helpful as it would be for any film lover in the Triangle, but I wish I knew who wrote that line about the empty rooms so I could avoid taking her/him seriously.
More astute critics have pointed out that such brief still-lifes are reminescent of the Japanese Master Yasujiro Ozu, whose best-known film in the west is "Tokyo Story," which shows up on just about everyone's top 100 list of the best movies of all time.
"Junebug" was created by a director (
Philip Morrison), and screenwriter (
Angus MacLachlan) who are both Winston-Salem natives. So the North Carolina sense-of-place so necessary to a film that breathes the way this one does, is strong. You can smell the dirt, to echo something Orson Welles said about John Ford's films, not that "Junebug" much resembles the work of most Hollywood auteurs.
This is a voyeuristic peek into something that feels like real lives despite having the tell-it-at-moments-of-high-stress structure of fiction. City folks come home to North Carolina to all kinds of hungers and family dramas. Godfrey Cheshire in "The Independent" said the actors/actresses in "Junebug" turned in the clean, believable performances that utterly convince you. I agree. Geez, you feel as if you've met these people, Adams' talkative, pregnant, naive but deeply loveable young wife Ashley is just perfect and deserved the award it won for her at the Sundance film festival.
Adams is also in the the Wil Ferrell NASCAR comedy being shot in Charlotte this month.
I have to admit though, Embeth Davditz as Madeleine rang my chimes. Embeth underplayed a role that required it as well as Adams turned up the neon on hers. They both require blue-flame burners underneath to be effective and those performances would set a beaker a boiling.
If ya gotta have summary, this is about Chicagoans George, who meets and marries art gallery owner, Madeleine, and the culture shock when they come back to North Carolina and meet George's family. The whole thing is complete with sterotypical Yankees and eccentric Southerners and Freudian/Jungian undertones. Yet, it somehow remains as American as going to a diner.
Actually, the whole thing is as American as apple pie. That's really what this movie "Junebug" is. A big, tasty slice of mom's apple pie, even though it's as tart as a lemon at times and Mom is the real thing, not some fairy tale vision of sweetness and light. Yet, somehow, it does capture a uniquely North Carolina ambiance that is neither flattering nor disparaging. It's a fork stuck right in the North Carolina heart of the all-American slice of apple pie.
UNC-TV’s Independent Film Series North Carolina Visions Season 11 Premieres Saturday, October 1, at 11 PM.
