JUNEBUG A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2005 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
How slow can we go? A paint peeler, JUNEBUG's slice of Southern life story features lots of actors who act hard trying to act natural. Indie director Phil Morrison has clearly studied at the David Gordon Green (UNDERTOW) school of minimalist filmmaking. Morrison loves to point the camera at inanimate objects and hold it steady, forcing us to gaze forever at the scene trying to figure out what in the world he wants us to see. In one sequence, reminiscent of a real estate sales video, he shows us long static images of just about every room in the North Carolina house where most of the story is set.
The plot has a Chicago gallery owner named Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) going with George (Alessandro Nivola), her husband, to his home town in order to sign up a local painter. Since they've been married and have known each for just six months, this appears to be their first joint visit to his old house of the aforementioned video tour.
George's dad is a taciturn enigma who stares a lot and spends his time woodworking. His mother is the traditional southern mom with typical advice. His brother, Johnny (Benjamin McKenzie), is sullen and angry, resenting George's success in life and his own lack of any. Johnny will soon be a father but wants nothing to do with Ashley (Amy Adams), his very pregnant wife who is currently on a diet to lose weight. (Given the movie's plethora of pregnant pauses, Ashley's condition seems almost like a bad in-joke.) The critics have been raving over Adams's performance, which seems odd since an adult acting like a 12-year-old isn't particularly difficult. In one of Ashley's key scenes, she tells Madeleine, "We can play beauty parlor!" Most grating of all is the confession by the sophisticated Madeleine that she bites her toe nails. Right. Of course, Ashley immediately claims that she does too.
There is a whole lot of prayin' goin' on in the film, but it never rises above the level of elevator music in believability. It's just there.
"Did you think it was funny," Madeleine asks Johnny. "No, I thought it was long," he replies. Although they could have been talking about the movie, they are actually discussing a book he is being tested on for his G.E.D. and which he has never read. He has only studied the Cliff Notes. One can imagine the Cliff Notes for this film. They would take up about a page.
JUNEBUG runs a long 1:47. It is rated R for "sexual content and language" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, August 12, 2005. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the Camera Cinemas.
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