Junebug

Starring Embeth Davidtz and Alessandro Nivola. Rated 14A. Opens Friday, September 23, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

Like its central character, a woman who collects outsider art for her Chicago gallery, Junebug appeals to the primitivist inside the sophisticated filmgoer. Of course, not every Miramaxer will cotton on to this Dixie-based movie's stripped-down storytelling, which weaves stark patterns around the drama without ever breaking into conflict or catharsis.

Things do happen here, at least for those patient enough to yield to the rhythms of everyday life in rural North Carolina, where folks are extra cautious and Jesus is lurking behind every spindly tree. Venturing into Andy Griffith territory-if Andy had a sling blade-is Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz at her warmest), who has a thing, and a market, for rustic folk art. Her latest discovery, David Wark (Frank Hoyt Taylor), is a backwoodser who seems more App?alachian than Carolinian. A cross between David Byrne fave Rev. Howard Finster and Henry Darger-the oddball subject of the recent In the Realms of the Unreal-fictional artist Wark puts giant spurting penises on Civil War generals and runaway slaves (who look white, since he's "never met a nigra"). They'll eat up this stuff in Manhattan.

The artist's location gives Madeleine a good reason to bring her new husband, George (Alessandro Nivola), along for the ride, because his family lives close by. But otherwise you can't call them close. George's dad (Scott Wilson) is a bumpkin Buddha, accepting of all around him, while his mom (Celia Weston) can barely veil her contempt for the lad's worldly new wife and her open, double-kissing ways. Younger brother Johnny (Benjamin McKenzie) is a silent, angry soul while Johnny's pregnant, chatterbox wife (Amy Adams) says "I love you" to Madeleine within an hour of meeting her.

The biggest cipher in all this is George, and director Phil Morrison, working from Angus MacLachlan's script (both are from the film's real location), doesn't spend much energy explaining the back story. From the fair-haired man's good looks and confident demeanour, we can tell that he's the local golden boy, to whom success came without much effort and whose general silence is a blank slate on which others draw their portraits of him. Madeleine doesn't know much more, and she's shocked to find out how detached he can be in a time of crisis.

There are other surprises, as when he joins a party full of churchy types and breaks into an antique hymn-something that starts absurd and then is striking in its authentic beauty. The Boston-born Nivola is effortlessly effective as this secretive southerner, who turns out to have hidden reserves of grace and resilience. Meanwhile, Adams's overacting as the woman-child sister-in-law is, although sometimes silly, somehow necessary in this taciturn setting.

The film is broken up by almost-still images of strange countryside and lonely stucco houses, and this rhythm is supported by spare music courtesy of Yo La Tengo, a band of outsiders for whom Morrison has made several intriguing videos.

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