Thursday 20 October 2011

Junebug

2005 by Phil Morrison - English movie

Another night when I wanted the movie to end before the Champion league match, so yet again had to go for a Hollywood movie. But this time, it was quite different. This movie is more European than American, for its cinematic values.

An art dealer has to travel to a village to meet an eccentric artist. She takes her husband along who is actually from the same region and decides to go to his family. In his family, she meets his parents, his brother and his pregnant wife. 

I must confess, I never expected this movie to be so good. I picked it because of Amy Adams. But it is really really a different movie. One movie which I will place almost in the levels of A love song for Bobby Leong, which is still more dear to me. But, what makes this movie a very special one is the character Ashley, the pregnant daughter in law in the family, played super brilliantly by Amy Adams. To be frank, I liked her as a charming actress, but I never thought she was such a good actor. This is an incredible character, the overtly romantic, overtly extrovert and silly and nice Ashley, who happened to decide and pick on her life partner at a very early stage of her life, at high school. Slowly she finds him changing, changing to a very strange person with no care for her or no exhibition of his love for her that she seems to have decided to become a mother at a young age, on the hope that seeing the baby she will get her loving partner back.

Let me repeat, I was awe struck by the character of Ashley and the performance. Beyond words actually. I dont know if I ever felt so sorry for any character in an American movie. While watching Il Postino, we feel for our silly postman. But the feeling we have for Ashley is even more in a sad way. It is hard to believe that we will find this kind of girl or wife in a western world. Ashley is in a situation, where 99% of western women will simply walk out of the marriage, but she behaves more like an Asian. There is a shot of Ashley touching herself, when her uninterested husband, both sooo young, is in the next room. That scene was so moving. And her hope that he will change for good soon, made me even sad.

For the rest, each and every character in this family is quite different is what makes this movie very special. I dont think it made clear why and how Ashley's husband changed so, though. So was the reaction of the elder son at the end, driving back to the city. He looked so nice with them, expecting his wife to be nice and concerned to the family, but his reaction as he drives back is baffling though.

On Cinematic qualities, this movie is anything but Hollywood. It is more like a European movie actually.

Beautiful and heart touching movie. And brilliant for Amy Adams.