Who has seen "Junebug," and is it an accurate take on the South?

[dback]

Saw it last night--little art house movie with big buzz. One of the actresses, Amy Adams, is a front-runner right now for the Oscars as Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of a lonely chatterbox wife in a very grim household.

The main protagonist is a Chicago art dealer, played by Embeth Davids. (I think her name was Evelyn.) We know she is a Blue Stater, because she wears black a lot, is pushing 40 and childless, and is invested in her career. She also does not attend church regularly and calls people "darling" in a vaguely British accent.

What I can't figure out is the filmmaker's perspective on the Red State-Blue State thing, which intersects with a few of the film's flaws. My perspective is that the woman, recently married into the clan via a refugee son named George (Alessandeo Nivola), tries very hard throughout her trip to North Carolina to be kind and gracious, but her efforts are continuously regarded with suspicion and veiled hostility by much of the community and her husband's family. (At her sister-in-law's baby shower, she gets a noticable freeze-out from the women gathered because she gives a handsome engraved silver spoon; the mother comments sourly that it "won't go in the dishwasher.")

The dynamics between George and his brother Johnny are curious. George has left the South, and not been home for quite awhile; when his mother takes his face between her hands and says "There's not a thing wrong with you, George--not a thing," you can see the war in his face between wanting to accept such seemingly unconditional love, yet also a fierce resistance against her smothering son-worship.

In contrast, his younger brother Johnny (Ben Mackenzie) is a high school dropout and loser who is surly, lazy, and insensitive (he misinterprets his new sister-in-laws attempts to help him with his GED by trying to grab her ass). When a family tragedy occurs in the last act and George goes to offer his younger brother some support, the kid reacts by throwing a wrench at his brother's face hard enough to draw blood. (George berates his wife for not going directly to the hospital when his sister in law gives birth, as Evelyn is trying to shore up a deal with a local artist down the road, offering a pious comment about nothing being more important than family, but at the film's end as they drive away he comments "Thank God we're out of there"--and noticibly doesn't offer to drive his wife by the hospital to say goodbye to the sister-in-law who was so kind to her. On the other hand, Evelyn does't ask.) The unspoken implication is that the mother's smothering worship of George caused her to neglect her angry, less-smart younger son, setting him up to fail (he works a minimum-wage job packing boxes), yet the film also seems to want to condemn George and Evelyn for "condescending" to him.

I've long heard about Southern hospitality, but this film was the complete opposite--friendly but very cool to "outsiders," and if you stick around, watch out--the community will reject you as "not one of them." I saw it with a friend from Ohio who says that in his experience, the "Southern hospitality" thing is a Hollywood myth--this is much closer to the truth, and the reason he hates it there. (He couldn't stand the film.)

So much of the film was lovely--lush and rural (shot in North Carolina), and the homespun mood was amazing (there's a church supper scene with people singing an acappella hymn that could bring tears or goosebumps), yet when the pastor prays at the table, there was a very strong undercurrent directed at Evelyn that "you will never be a part of this." And George seems to fail in his role of Prodigal Son--he didn't fail at life and become unsuccessful, and he didn't come home to stay, and his family (especially his mother and brother) seem to resent him for this.

I'm having a hard time separating out all the cultural stuff from the plot points, and figuring out how successful it was. (George especially seems a weak character as written, swinging from disengaged from his family/culture to defensive about it against his wife--maybe that was how he was indeed supposed to be, but the actor couldn't pull it off.) And was Evelyn's ultimate pursuit of a mentally-handicapped painter (who's mixture of racism and homoeroticism in his work is beyond belief) a sign of her recognizing talent, or her ruthless, no-manners Yankee style, especially since she then didn't go see her sister-in-law in her hour of need?

Red-and-Blue-Staters, what do you make of this very confusing film?
What is going on in this movie, and what does it say about the future of our country politically? Can we ever see Purple?

[TNDemo]

1. I haven't seen the film

but I know that the "north" and the "south" both cover large areas - both geographically, politically, culturally, religiously - and while a tale may be true about one area, it can't represent the whole. The north and the south are such large areas with such diverse people that it can't be painted with a brush stroke that would portray everyone accurately. Sounds like an interesting movie.

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2. I know Louisiana is DEFINITELY it's own special country,,,

...what about the Deep South (Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia) vs. the Carolinas?

Maybe I'm confusing city/urban folk with rural folk--hell, there's a big difference in a Blue State such as California between San Jose/San Francisco, vs. Weed or Yreka. I'm sure Charleston and Raleigh and other major urban centers in North Carolina are different from their smaller, rural cousins. (This movie was definitely set in the rural part of the state.)