August 5, 2005 |  Unassumingly compelling enough to restore your faith in the American indie movement, Junebug is a richly yet subtly detailed dramedy about the ripple effects of a cultured Northern yuppie’s first meeting with her dysfunctional Southern in-laws. The storyline could have been spun as a flat-out farce – or, with only slightly different emphases, as a spooky-creepy thriller – but director Phil Morrison and screenwriter Angus MacLachlan aspire to offer something far more complex and compelling. To an unusually satisfying degree, they succeed.

The briskly efficient early scenes detail the fortuitous meeting and passionate coupling of Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz), an attractive Chicago art gallery owner, and George (Alessandro Nivola), a slightly younger hunk who hails from a North Carolina backwater. Months after their rather hasty wedding, Madeleine plans a trip to her husband’s home state to track down reclusive David Wark (scene-stealing Frank Hoyt Taylor), an eccentric “outsider” artist whose bizarre paintings are even more impenetrable than his thick accent. George agrees – with conspicuously muffled enthusiasm – to join her on the journey so he can introduce her to his family.

Right from the start, Junebug commands attention by teasing the audience with unspoken questions left unanswered (and, in most cases, unacknowledged) by its characters. Why hasn’t George brought Madeleine home before now? Why wasn’t his family invited to the wedding? Why did he leave home in the first place? If Morrison and MacLachlan know, they keep the info to themselves. Instead, they simply hint at emotional estrangement and strained relationships, thereby providing an ominously percolating undercurrent throughout many semi-claustrophobic scenes in the modest but spacious family home.

Johnny (Ben McKenzie of TV’s The O.C.), George’s younger brother, reacts to his more successful sibling’s return with an unstable mix of studied indifference and open hostility. Their parents – polite but faintly disapproving Peg (Celia Weston), taciturn and easily distractible Eugene (Scott Wilson) – warmly embrace their prodigal son, but are markedly more restrained in welcoming Madeleine. Indeed, Madeleine is greeted with unreservedly open arms only by Ashley (Amy Adams), Johnny’s extremely pregnant young wife, an indefatigably merry chatterbox who instantly accepts the exotic outsider as equal parts role model, visiting celebrity and brand new best friend.

Partly due to her character’s generosity of spirit, but mostly due to her own charismatic exuberance, up-and-comer Adams dominates Junebug with her appealing portrayal of a nonjudgmental optimist who’s savvy enough to recognize the shortcomings of others, but sweet enough to offer encouragement, not condemnation. “God loves you just the way you are,” Ashley tells Johnny at one point, “but too much to let you stay that way.” Adams received a special jury prize for her performance at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. That likely won’t be the last accolade she’ll earn for her work here.

Working in a less flashy mode, Davidtz impresses with her shrewd underplaying of a career-driven sophisticate whose affability and graciousness occasionally appear (and quite possibly are) condescending. McKenize conveys all the pent-up resentment one would expect from an underemployed young man still living in his parents’ home with his pregnant wife. (A nice touch: The one time he attempts a selfless gesture for Ashley, Johnny drives himself to frustrated rage.) Weston and Wilson provide depth and texture to their sketchy roles. But Nivola is hard-pressed to make sense of a character whose moods and motivations remain too opaque, and too often seem arbitrary. Even in a movie that prides itself on discretion and understatement – sometimes, less isn’t more, it’s not nearly enough.