United States, 2005Cast: Embeth Davidtz, Alessandro Nivola, Benjamin McKenzie, Amy Adams, Celia Wetson, Scott Wilson
Director: Phil Morrison
My Rating: *** / ****
There were times, when I wrote my reviews, a moment where I don’t know how to begin, what to tell, and how to wrap the review. When such times occurs, I would usually give a simple sentence as a whole opinion and writing some bla-bla-bla, yada-yada-yada that based and centered on it thus made my review had a little sense of pretentousness and pointlessness.
It usually happens when I had no idea on what to wrote as the movie itself didn’t gave me anything to start off. There were no apparent crap to bashed upon, nor apparent beauty to praise upon. Everything is just seem so subtle that I had to dig further into my consciussness to find the hidden message the film had for me. If, at anytime, I failed to find the hidden message, then it’s because simply the movie sucks, and really really had nothing to offer.
Fortunately, that’s not the case with Junebug. I had watched it twice (yes, twice) in the last four days – editor note: he tried to be less than the late Pauline Kael who believes that the first movie impression is the foremost important thing in order to made a honest review – to catch the glimpse of meaning from this slow-paced character-packed family drama.
Like most film that entirely dependent on character developments, Junebug is a magnamous slow-paced that it would leave most of the audience simply impatient (oh yeah, I had my impatience) with it. Medeline (Davidtz) was an art dealer. One day, she met George (Nivola) and they fall in love and married soon after. Six months later, while in the vicinity for business purpose, the couple decided to drop on George’s parents’ place. Wonder, how many films already that came out based on this fact alone (in-law visits).
Here is the family that Medeline had to deal with: Peg (Watson), the mother, criticizes everyone, second-guesses every decision, and never wrong (of course, according to her). Eugene (Wilson), the father, always in silence, in solitude, and most of his time are spent in his basement wood-carving. Jhonny (McKenzie), George’s younger brother, newly married to his high-school sweets, Ashley (Adams) which is pregnant.
Jhonny was a desperate young man, he feels like everybody around him overwhelmed him, pitying him (maybe because he didn’t have a high-school diploma?), thus, he responded everything with his usual, withdrawing, not talking, and find something to busied himself with. Ashley was a sweet, chatty, cheerful, optimistic, and supportive. She’s the one we could fall in love with, but in my point of view, she’s the one who suffer the most in this film. Even I almost cried for her tragic moment on one scene (not telling) in both viewing, worse at the second viewing.
Okay, I could talk on and on and on about how each characters intertwined and developed. But at the very least, the above three pharagraphs could cover the surface.
Many of people on RT (rottentomatoes.com) named this movie as their one of best of 2005. Understandably. I would too, if I was a Northern-American. As some of the reviewers put it, this film is great because it’s true. Well, I guess, it’s true to those who had lived their life in Northern-American. For I, who had spent his entire life so far in Indonesia, found a considerable difficulty in connecting with the situation. Not with the characters, but situation. Nonetheless, I was fascinated with the characters and how they dealt with the problem.
The problems portrayed in this film, I think, were common in families. All the problems that could be attributed to one basic problem. Communication. Hell, I used to suffer from my relationship because of the shite communications thingy as well. But, unlike many of its Hollywood counterparts, these problems are not solved during the short visit, just in time for the film to end. We didn’t see Ashley takes comfort on George, or Medeleine breaks into Jhonny's solitude by sleeping with him, even though the chances are there. And, this is the best, even though we didn’t see Ashley and Jhonny as a perfect couple you can get, we didn’t see ‘divorce’ shadowed their relationship.
Amy Adams as Ashley won last year’s Sundance film-festival for her performance. And I couldn’t agree more with it. Ashley’s character was a joke-potential. We see love, we see cheerfulness, but we should see tragedy, and sadness as well, and if the actress behind it doesn’t had the talent to deliver such dicotomy, we would laugh and dismissed the character entirely. It’s a win-all or lose-all situation. And of course, on this case, Amy Adams wins it all. The rest of the actors also came great. At least, none of the important characters (Medelene and George’s family) fall short on the acting department. Thus, made this film into an enjoyable joy-ride of characters’ study.
All in all, family’s problems go on and on, and they aren’t solved, they’re dealt with. Now, that’s leave me with a problem, should I watch this movie again? Because I feel like I haven’t seen it enough. And giving it a mere 3 rating won’t do justice. Ah, well…