PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 8/5/05)

"I guess she'll find out all my faults sooner or later," says George Johnsten (Alessandro Nivola) in Junebug, a Sundance-style Sweet Home Alabama that trades romantic comedy for perceptive character study. George's words may not sound familiar, but they echo every man's fears that he might not be worthy of the woman he married. The first college graduate in an unremarkable North Carolina family, George has spent his entire adult life running away from his roots. The first opportunity he got, he moved to Chicago and invented a new identity more in keeping with his own idea of himself. It worked, too. Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) fell in love with a city boy who'd lost his accent, given up smoking, and kicked all traces of religion from his life.

She was tall, beautiful, and sophisticated, born in Japan, raised in Africa, the kind of woman he liked to be seen with because she reflected well on him. Plus, they couldn't keep their hands off one another. A week after they met, they were married, but it didn't occur to George to invite his family to the wedding. What he didn't realize was that she wanted to know more about him, that part of his charm was his small-town upbringing. And when her work (she owns an "outsider" art gallery, specializing in the work of self-taught artists) brought her down to North Carolina, she suggested they spend some time with his family.

Junebug is that story, a soft-spoken and observant family drama full of humor and moments of tender, quiet heartbreak. As directed by Phil Morrison, Angus MacLachlan's script achieves with quiet intensity what Tennessee Williams did with alcohol-fueled tirades, a sense of genuine all-American vérité carved from firsthand observation. George's reluctant homecoming introduces Madeleine to her husband's busybody mother Peg (Celia Weston); his stoic, unresponsive father Eugene (Scott Wilson); and his hotheaded and resentful younger brother Johnny (Benjamin McKenzie). But best of all, it introduces us to Johnny's very pregnant new wife, Ashley (Amy Adams), whose genuine enthusiasm for life seems every bit as overripe as "the gift of new life" she carries inside her.

The moment Madeleine arrives, Ashley demands to hear every little thing about her new sister-in-law. She's an indefatigable optimist. A high-school dropout (but only because she and Johnny were "too much in love" to finish), Ashley's like a sponge thirsty to learn everything about the world. She's enchanted by this exotic new woman, who kisses acquaintances on both cheeks and drops swear words in casual conversation, and she quickly adopts her behavior. Ashley would have made an easy caricature, but Morrison and MacLachlan respect her too much for that, and Junebug slowly reveals her to be the wisest, most alive of the characters in its all-around strong ensemble.

Junebug is that rare kind of movie that contrasts "cultured" big-city characters with devout, "simple" folk without being condescending or judgmental of either camp. It's about introducing a wife who symbolizes your new life to the parents who remind you of the one you left behind, about rediscovering the values you deemed too quaint or simple to live by. As an art collector, Madeleine's quest is to find authentic new voices untainted by big-city culture, and yet George is too self-conscious about his unpolished upbringing to realize that she'll respect him more for it. Watch Madeleine's eyes when she discovers that he was once the most celebrated singer at his small-town Baptist church to see how little she knows the man she loves and how much she too wants to discover every little thing about him.— Peter Debruge