Meet the family

by RICHARD JONES

DRAGGING an in-law back to the family home to meet the folks has been the central theme of a few films released this year.

The Family Stone and Meet The Fokkers are both stories about a son bringing his loved one home to meet his parents.

So, too, is Phil Morrison's Junebug. Chicago art gallery owner Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) is married to George (Alessandro Nivola) and discovers that she needs to journey south - to North Carolina, in fact - to pursue a local painter and obtain some of his works for her gallery.

Now North Carolina just happens to be the state where George's parents live so the married couple decide to combine her work trip with a visit to his parents.

You'll just have to accept the fact that George and Madeleine have been married for 12 months and this will be the first time George has introduced his wife to his parents.

Strange, but true. They do live in the rarefied Chicago art world so maybe they just never thought of Madeleine getting to meet her new in-laws.

Anyway she does her best to accept them just as she tries to understand the artist. They are all a bit weird yet she strives to win them over.

George's mother Peg (Celia Weston) dislikes her new daughter-in-law almost instantaneously while Dad Eugene (Scott Wilson) is a shadowy figure who spends most of his waking hours searching for a missing screwdriver.

Monosyllabic brother Johnny (Ben McKenzie from the hit TV series The O.C.) doesn't seem to like either George or Madeleine. However his very pregnant wife Ashley (Amy Adams) treats the art dealer as someone akin to rock royalty or perhaps a visiting movie star.

Amy Adams steals the show. Child-like Ashley has absolutely nothing in common with the sophisticated city dweller but she battles on, even disclosing that the name Junebug (the film's title) is the name she has chosen for her unborn baby.

It's a film not just about the divide between the US's polished big city northerners and their fundamentalist Christian cousins from the south, but also about family relationships and how people can learn to be nicer to each other.

Ashley personifies this latter character trait beautifully as she walks the delicate line between naivet and gracious host.

3 October 2006

australianrules.com.au

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