Junebug

Madeleine, a Chicago gallery owner who deals in outsider folk art, travels to North Carolina to sign a painter and takes the chance to meet her new husband's family for the first time. The family neither accepts nor rejects her; everyone attends to their own business and the tension sits at the table rather than in any scene. The person who ends up at the centre is Ashley, her brother-in-law's pregnant wife: talking constantly, loving everyone, taken seriously by nobody. Phil Morrison shot it where he grew up and neither patronises nor exalts the people in it. Amy Adams took an Oscar nomination and a special jury prize at Sundance for Ashley, and the film opened her career. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet family drama and character observation. Who it is not for: anyone wanting incident, since the biggest event is a dinner.