DVD Movie Night: "Junebug"

When the critically acclaimed "Junebug" hit theaters in 2005, we kept putting off seeing it, either because there were too many other movies competing for our eyeballs and dollars at the time or because we didn't have the time. And then, suddenly, it vanished from the few theaters where it had been screening. We'd have to wait for the DVD. So for movie night this week we rented it. Now that we've seen "Junebug," we wish we hadn't waited -- it's such a great, powerfully undertstated film. The basic story follows a young, British art gallery owner in Chicago and her American husband of six months. He's originally from North Carolina, so when the young married couple embark on a trip to rural North Carolina to visit an outsider artist the wife's gallery is interested in repping, they use the trip as an opportunity to visit the husband's family for the first time. The movie observes a quietly dysfunctional family and exposes the differences between "big city folk" versus "country folk," secular versus religious, educated versus the uneducated, the wordly versus the parochial and minute red-blue state culture-war differences that can divide a contemporary American family in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. The acting performances are superb. "Junebug" is a first-rate film.

Air Massive rating: 4 stars out of 5

Posted by Robsam at March 11, 2006 08:28 PM