Junebug (2005)

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Embeth Davidtz (Army of Darkness) and Alessandro Nivola (The Art of Self-Defense) play married Chicago art dealers who stay with Nivola’s North Carolina family while Davidtz negotiates to represent a controversial painter who lives nearby. Nivola’s parents and brother put up a wall of quiet disapproval to Davidtz, but it slowly comes down as they realize she’s not the ‘elitist’ they fear. In contrast, Amy Adams plays the brother’s pregnant fiancée — a talkative, inquisitive woman-child who marvels at Davidtz and what she imagines city life to be.

Writer Angus MacLachlan and director Phil Morrison create a movie soufflé — an airy slice of life, ensemble character study without much obvious plotting to move it forward. There are long, uncomfortable silences and cuts to the mundanity of rural life — a mail box, a water sprinkler, an empty driveway. The characters are products of this quiet, insular environment where anything unusual gets immediate, focused attention. I think if Junebug is about anything, it’s about how our relationship with conflict is shaped by our environment. If so, maybe these characters — rural and metropolitan — learn something helpful from each other’s better qualities. With Celia Weston, Ben McKenzie, and Scott Wilson as Nivola’s family. Frank Hoyt Taylor is memorable as the painter who creates sexually charged murals of slavery and the Confederacy.

Oscar Nomination: Best Supporting Actress (Amy Adams)