Hey folks, Harry here with Sheldrake - and he's got a lot of reviews coming in. Over the past week there was some confusion over which editor here at AICN was posting what when... and as usual - when in doubt... Harry posts it. Sigh. hehhehe... Now - let's lend the eyeballs to shelly...
Junebug
March 26th 2005
American
directed by Phil Morrison
Written by Angus MacLachlan
Sheldrake here,reporting live from midtown in New York City. The Museum of Modern Art is running its New Directors / New Films series from March 23rd through April 3rd. Go to MOMA’s site (www.moma.org) to see the schedules. The programs feature new cinema by directors who’re coming to the Big Silver for the first time (or close), and much of what I’m seeing is blowing me away. MOMA’s on 53rd Street in Manhattan between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
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If you want an antidote to the trashy, dishonest portrayal of white Southern Americans as depicted in MILLION DOLLAR BABY, go see the comedy JUNEBUG, about the son of a Winston-Salem, NC family returning home for a visit.. You won’t be able to see it at ND/NF because it is as sold out as sold out can be. The word of mouth on it has been hotter than absolutely anything else at this festival. Did it live up to the promise? Keep reading.
Why is the WOM so hot? for one thing you fall in love with the characters fast and hard. Ever been sitting in a movie and you’re so involved, and you realize the movie’s ending and you have this sinking feeling: pretty soon the thing will be over and all these people are going home? You’re having such a good time you just do NOT want this thing to end, you’re so wrapped up in whether Johnny will end up supporting Ashley after she goes to have her baby, whether Madelyn will ever fit into the family, whether Dad will find his screwdriver…you know how some screenwriters set up these fake motivators for their characters in a script and you could just care less? This isn’t one of those stories. You’re caught up in the family craziness from the first frame.
In many ways Amy Adams’ Ashley is the key to the movie’s good heart. She’s one of these people who radiate sunshine and hope, even when the world goes dark on her—she has that elusive thing we laugh at a little too much, a beautiful soul. She has her limitations, she hasn’t grown up, and her husband can’t support her—they live with his family—but she just knows thing will work out all right in the end. She won’t give up on Johnny, no matter what. Her love for him is unconditional. And then she has the most heartbreaking scene in the movie, a scene you’ve seen before, but the character is so well made, the actress so good it’s not a scene, you’re there with character.
But Benjamin McKenzie’s Johnny is key too, and the actor here just nails this part, the thankless one because the character is hard to like. See, George is the goldenboy, the older brother who went to Chicago and made money. He always outshone Johnny and Johnny was crushed by it. They’re brothers, they do love each other and things will work out over time but right now Johnny DOES NOT WANT George to be there. George showing up means Johnny disappears from view. Johnny hates his family in a low-functioning, inarticulate, helpless way – look for the scene where he’s at work and is happy – it's key to understanding him. He doesn’t understand himself, or his own feelings, and his reaction is fear: he’s afraid to do anything to make any move for fear it’s the wrong one.
The other part of the story has George and Madelyn and the reason they came back to Winston-Salem in the first place, to buy some Outsider art (art by nonprofessional local artists). Madelyn’s been married to George for six months and she’s British and she does NOT fit in. At one point in the movie she violates a Southern taboo by not attending a family gathering, and it’s clear that she’s just clueless about how things work down there. George, on the other hand – it’s like he never left. One of the most beautiful moments in the film takes place in the church basement where George leads a beautiful Southern hymn – I partly grew up in Southern tent revivals and its perfect and musical and beautiful and moving. It’s just great and you’ll want to applaud afterwards. Some people in our audience did.
THE SOUTHERN THING: The director and actor took questions after the premier screening, and one of the things that came up—asked by a New Yorker, of course, mind slaves of the PC as they are—did the director think he’d given a negative depiction of the Southern characters? Jeezus, does that miss the point. This thing is such a beautiful piece of work because it does the hardest thing in the world: it looks at the characters with the unblinking eye, with all their faults, without sentimentality, and lets us look at them, BUT it doesn’t do it in any self-conscious arty way – the movie always remembers that its entertainment, and works in that vein. Let me be blunt: the only reason this is an indy movie is because Hollywood hates the South and hates Southerners. Any depiction of a real Southerner is to a California or New York sensibility BY DEFINITION offensive. What you get instead of human beings are vitriolic ad hominem caricatures that are supposed to be comic, as in that Oscar-winning piece of mind-insulting garbage Million Dollar Baby. What a crappy way to end a career, Clint, like running a marathon, winning and then smirking at an audience and relieving yourself in front of them. And I had to watch it.
Look, in my last review about Daniel Johnston I referred to him as a wacko fundamentalist Christian. And he is. But the “wacko” and “fundamentalist Christian” don’t always go together, a fact which, as often as it presents itself to the Hollywood mindset, is as often rejected. We’re supposed to tolerate all cultures except the ones native to our own land. How nuts is that? Look, in many ways I am George: I live in NYC and my family lives in Houston and they’re fundies and I am very much NOT and I’m the goldenboy and have that relationship with my brothers – I’ll tell you sometime about my misguided attempt to treat my my family to the Houston ballet—so my take on this film is very deep, and very personal. And I’m telling you, the director and screenwriter got this Southern family exactly right. Hey, New Yorkers, Californians: you want to actually LEARN something about the rest of the country you live in? You want to see Americans depicted in an honest way, without any kowtowing to the way you think things should be? Pull your heads out of, uh, the sand, let’s say, and go see Phil’s and Angus’s accomplishment, JUNEBUG. And the rest of you: you want to see a comedy so real that you’ll have the emotions you’re supposed to have when you see this kind of thing, you know, the laughing and crying at the same time thing? Go see this one. Really. If you have a heart you’ll fall in love with this movie the way I did. And let me know what you think.
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When you do get to see the movie, here’s something fun to ask yourself: what religious tradition do you think Madelyn was raised in? Look at how she reacts when people pray, and look at her reaction to the artist when she makes her last attempt to get him to sign with her art dealership.
Mr. Sheldrake
NY, NY
