Meet The Febriles

A beautifully observed and expertly played slice of American life, the unassuming but hugely powerful Junebug sets a complicated trap to capture what are in a very real sense the minutiae that make up our shared experiences. Debutant director Phil Morrison builds his case for clashed cultures through almost invisible gestures and flicked glances, silences, the imperceptible differences in language and custom and the niceties of human contact, concentrated in the return to the rural family home after a couple of years of a nice young man and his new city wife.

Opening the film with a series of yodelling rebel yells, a sound you could only hear in the deep mountain back country, the worldly, polished Madeline (Embeth Davidtz) is immediately out of her depth. Bobbed and manicured, she’s a thirtysomething dealer in difficult, intellectual outsider art who must travel to rural North Carolina to sign up a local painter David Wark, based on the real-life reclusive genius Henry Darger and played with considerable relish by a mumbling Frank Hoyt Taylor.

Her new husband George (Allesandro Nivola) grew up in the area, although he hasn’t been home for three years, so they decide to travel together and spend time with his father and mother (Scott Wilson & Celia Weston), his listless younger brother Johnny (Benjamin McKenzie) and his heavily pregnant young sweetheart Ashley (Amy Adams). The glamorous Madeline and the now gentrified and grown-up George make a considerable splash in the small, religious community, not least in the family home, which is more or less unchanged. Troubled and remote, Johnny resents his brother for his success and his smiling confidence. His father is meek, tiptoeing through his own home and relegated to fussing in the basement while the drama is enacted over his head. Most of the that noise comes from the busy, fussy mother Peg, who doesn’t believe Madeline and George have thought out their relationship and is uncomfortable around the newcomer. Not so Ashley, naive and enthusiastic, who is literally open-mouthed in her admiration for her new sister-in-law, who to her eyes seems to have stepped out, fully formed, from the pages of a magazine.

Everything is tense in this situation, but strangely, the film is not. There is drama, certainly, and humour and insight, but the film plays out beautifully, finding time to fill in elements of the back story we might not consider important while choosing not to reveal that which we would think essential. We don’t know much about Madeline and George’s marriage, beyond the shared smile and chance meeting that started them off, but we know enough. We get to know very little about Dad, but what we do find out is beautifully illuminative. At times the camera itself looks away, its attention caught by a copse of trees, or an empty room, or a neighbour waving. Economically sketched and open to discussion and interpretation, Angus MacLachlan’s tight and telling script is a joy.

All the relationships are open to question, with the newlyweds coming to realise who they are married to, the parents terrified that the stranger might interrupt their routine, and the young couple whose love has been diluted by boredom and familiarity. The story’s drive is provided by the imminent arrival of Ashley’s first child, and Madeline’s increasingly fraught efforts to sign up the hot new art talent, against competition from another gallery. While both these elements provide rich moments and engrossing drama, they are not crucial to the films appreciation. Both do lead to scenes of incredible power and veracity. Amy Adams as the sweet-natured, angelic Ashley shares a scene with Nivola that is the cinematic equivalent to a kick in the stomach, yet the film doesn’t exploit or extend it and carries on, bravely. Relative newcomer Adams, as the emotional heart of the piece, is a revelation and she fully deserves the plaudits her performance has received. The rest of the cast are just as good, honest and real and tremendous company and it is their multi-layered, wholly human performances that make Junebug is a great film to watch because it is open; unhurried and confident and true to itself. Quirky and unexpected, it is profound and thoughtful and, crucially, continues to search for authenticity and originality as it unfolds in Morrison's skillful hands. It is also jam-packed with one-liners and sarcastic asides, which gives the darker moments pep and lift. The dialogue might ring true, and amuse and warm the heart, but what remains unsaid and undone is just as important and just as illustrative and just as profound and ultimately what separates this low-budget gem from Meet The Hill Billy Fockers, without the toilet jokes.