Junebug
There’s not much to Junebug, and that’s its charm I suppose. A man returns home to introduce his new polished and savvy wife to his hick-ish simple family. There’s some tension, some laughs, and a few dramas. It’s the kind of film that depends on a great script and solid acting to make something out of its straightforward unoriginal premise, and to a degree Junebug has both.
Amy Adams as a hyperactive pregnant sweetheart, and the only family member to really welcome the couples return, was rightly nominated for a number of awards, as hers is one of the most adorable characters I can recall, while Benjamin McKenzie from The O.C. shows there’s more to him than just brooding glances and melodramatic fist-fights.
The characters themselves are as flawed and sometimes inconsistent as say, a real person may be, which may confound some used to the strict archetypes of such dysfunction-family films, but personally I found it a nice surprise, and Junebug overall an endearing reflection on the whole ‘never come home again’ adage.