Meet the parents (and the brother and sister-in-law)

Before Sunday, the last film I'd seen Alessandro Nivola in was 'Goal!'. Let's just say that 'Junebug' is rather different...

It's one of those films in which nothing much happens, but which nevertheless captivates from first minute to last. It depicts a visit paid by George Johnsten (Nivola) to his family in North Carolina in the company of his new wife Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz), an art dealer. Over the course of their stay domestic dramas play themselves out and husband and wife learn more about each other. What sets out as a warm and brilliantly subtle comedy actually becomes something more poignant towards the end.

If the actual events are unremarkable, then the characters certainly aren't - particularly George's sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued mother Peg (Celia Weston) and irrepressibly effervescent sister-in-law Ashley (Amy Adams, who deservedly received an Oscar nomination for her performance).

It's a very simple, uncluttered film. Rather than cramming every minute with dialogue and action, director Phil Morrison and writer Angus MacLachlan let things unfold slowly of their own accord. And that would be my only real criticism - at times it was perhaps too slow, even for this viewer who had a raging hangover at the time and was thus in the mood to appreciate a sedate narrative pace. Sometimes events and exchanges were burdened with an excessively weighty significance in a manner that was a bit too heavy-handed.

Other things to recommend it, though: the occasional music from Yo La Tengo (of whom more next week) and the early cameo from Will Oldham.