50 STATES 50 MOVIES: NORTH CAROLINA
You Don't Have To Be An Elitist Yankee Snob To Be Creative And Talented
Junebug
My longest and most serious relationship was with a native of North Carolina.
Despite growing up where the Deep South meets Appalachia, never graduating college, and never having left the country, he was more creative than me, smarter than me, sharper than me, and more worldly than me. I learned more about life in conversations with him than I ever did in my expensive private schools in New York. My experience with him made me reexamine how I approached people who come from small towns and humbler backgrounds than mine.
While with him, I would often think about the main character in the movie Junebug, Madeleine Johnsten, especially the one Christmas I met his mother and showed her around New York City (Though his mother was far more warm and kind than the character’s mother-in-law). Still, harkening back to the film while spending time with my partner’s North Carolina family made me realize there was something unique about this former Confederate State. Home to both wealthy and poor communities (the Vanderbilts build their palace here) is truly a place where the redneck stereotype is turned on its side. Undeniably Southern, North Carolina breaks the age-old stereotype of dumb redneck. This is why Junebug is the right movie to represent the Tarheel State.
Madeleine (Embeth Davidz), is a British woman who was raised in various parts of the world. At the start of the film, she is hosting an art auction benefit for then-U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois in her hometown of Chicago. She meets a dashing man, George Johnsten (Alessandro Nivola), and sparks fly. Within six months the two marry, but George’s family, who live in rural North Carolina, do not attend.
Madeleine gets a call about an artist who lives near her in-laws in North Carolina. The artist, David Wark (Frank Hoyt Taylor) paints rather cringey pieces inspired by the Civil War. One of his paintings features a slave revolt where black slaves impale their masters with…well, watch the movie for yourself, just not around children. She goes to North Carolina with George to meet the artist, whom she hits it off with and tries to get him to agree to a show at her gallery. While there, the couple decide to visit George’s family.
Notably, when we meet the Johnstens, none of George’s blood relatives are smiling or putting on any type of happy demeanor. There’s George’s quiet, reserved father Eugene (Scott Wilson), who we meet while he’s blowing up an air mattress for George and Madeleine to sleep on. We meet George’s mother Peg (Celia Weston) who seems incapable of a smile, and George’s brother Johnny (Ben MacKenzie) who acts about as mature as a 14-year-old boy. The person carrying the joy in this household is Johnny’s pregnant wife Ashley (Amy Adams in her first Oscar-nominated role).
George and Madeleine walk into a lot of unexpected drama. Johnny is studying to get his GED while Ashley is struggling to make the marriage work. She is rather naively counting on the baby to fix the marriage. Ashley is the only one in the family who is warm to Madeleine, everyone else seems to treat her like some sort of infection George caught living in the big city. Madeleine makes an effort with the rest of the family but finds cold shoulders. It doesn’t help that she keeps calling George’s mother Pat instead of Peg.
Madeleine explains to Peg that she and George came down to North Carolina to meet the artist and insisted they visit his family. She praises the artist to which Peg replies that she wouldn’t have thought Madeleine would have left Chicago to find good art. Throughout the next few scenes, we discover the talent in the Johnsten family. Peg does ceramics (one of which Madeleine broke upon arrival. and Ashley took the fall). Eugene does woodworking and makes a crib for the baby, which Madeleine appears to be enamored by.
This dynamic made me pick this movie to represent North Carolina. It was pretty wild to see this type of creativity and ingenuity in an overlooked part of society, and Madeleine’s acknowledgment of it, even if it does often come across as patronizing. Peg certainly thinks it is.
For most of the film, you can’t help but cringe at the moments where Madeleine comes across as an obvious outsider, and the lack of desire among everyone except Ashley to welcome her in. At times you can’t tell if Madeleine is being genuine or just being a patronizing elitist. I lean toward the latter, and perhaps it should be more obvious to me.
As the film goes on, we learn more about the Johnsten family. Eugene and Peg have grown apart. Johnny is struggling to finish his GED and adjust to adulthood and Ashley is barely hanging on, smiling through all the obvious pain. Throughout the film, hints are dropped that Ashley isn’t being taken care of correctly considering her condition, and is very naive about what a pregnant woman needs. This has consequences later.
George, it seems, was resistant to return to his hometown. He’s a quiet one, and we can quite read him. The impression I get is that he left North Carolina to seek something more fulfilling from the redneck life he grew up in. This leads to wondering if it's Madeleine or George who is the elitist here.
Madeleine stands out like a sore thumb at Ashley’s baby shower, and while her gift of a fancy baby spoon is cherished by Ashley, it’s another strike against her with Peg. Things go south (no pun intended) again when David and his sister show up to talk to Madeleine about potentially making a deal with an art studio in New York. While Madeleine is negotiating, Ashley leads her shower guests in a prayer, which triggers the obviously mentally ill David into pontificating about the Confederacy (even referring to General Sherman as Satan). The rant makes everyone at the party uncomfortable. One guest even cringes. The South has a complicated relationship with its Confederate history and in this moment we’re left wondering if the awkwardness of this crowd’s reaction is shame at that history or guilt over still being secretly proud of it.
In a very revealing moment, Johnny, who is watching television downstairs, attempts to tape a show about meerkats, Ashley’s favorite animal, but gets frustrated when he can’t figure out how to do it. He gets angry when Ashley offers to help. We get a glimpse into Johnny’s love for Ashley, which he never shows otherwise. It’s a rare human moment from the Johnstens.
We hear little directly from George himself in the film, There are multiple shots of him passed out on a couch or silently smiling. The most we see of him is at the church dinner after the shower where the young pastor, Bud, invites George to sing a hymn. George’s hymn surprises Madeleine and fills his family with pride. For a while here it looks like George is getting reacquainted with his hometown and maybe harbors some desire to move back, which appears to worry Madeleine.
That night, Madeleine agrees to Ashley’s request to help Johnny with his report on Huckleberry Finn and while the two are alone in the kitchen, Johnny hits on Madeleine. When Madeleine resists, rather kindly honestly, Johnny lets out his anger. He expresses his feelings that George and Madeleine feel superior to him and his family because of their more worldly and educated. It's not clear Madeleine genuinely feels that way, but it opens up a view into what the problems between George and his family may be.
This follows with a scene at church where George is singing away in the pews, and Peg and Eugene later discuss Madeleine before she walks in and sits with them. It’s clear Peg hates her, but Eugene – this is the most we’ve heard from him in the entire movie – approves and wants Peg to lay off. Peg gives Madeleine a “this is not how we do things in this town” lecture about staying up late with Johnny which Eugene promptly smacks down by reminding his wife of their late-night adventures. Peg walks off and Eugene and Madeleine share a tender moment. It’s interesting to me that Eugene and George are very alike, while Peg and Johnny are similar, and it’s Eugene, not Peg, who likes Madeleine.
The climax of the film begins with Ashley going into labor. The family takes her to the hospital while Madeleine waits for George at the house. She gets a call from her coworker in Chicago and finds out David is signing with a gallery in New York and decides to go to his house to win him back. This leads to a rather muted argument in the car where George tells Madeleine the importance of family and how she should be at the hospital with him. We begin to wonder if this homecoming is going to make George want to stay and reconnect with this country upbringing.
Madeleine decides to go to David’s where she discovers his anti-semitism. She momentarily wonders if she should leverage that to her benefit, but doesn’t. David tells her he will sign with her if she can get him a fruit basket and then proceeds to explain that he sees Madeleine as a good Christian woman, which is ironic considering Madeleine is the least overtly religious person in the film.
Things go south in a hurry. At the hospital, everyone looks despondent and when Madeleine finally reaches George to tell him her news, she finds out that Ashley’s baby was stillborn. George passively aggressively criticizes Madeleine for not being there and tells her to take a cab while he attends to Ashley. He and Ashley share a tender moment, where the normally bright and chipper Ashley breaks down and mourns her loss. This scene is what scored Adams her first Oscar nomination. It does appear now that George and Madeleine are going to have a falling out and George will become closer to his family.
Madeleine never gets to the hospital, instead meeting the family at home where everyone grieves, if you can call it that, in their own way. George tries to comfort Johnny like he did Ashley, but ends up with a head inquiry when Johnny without saying anything throws a wrench at him. George tells Madeleine they will leave the next day.
The next day, Madeleine finds Eugene’s missing screwdriver, which cements their bond. Eugene even holds out hope Madeleine will return, offering to show her his woodworking next time. Peg and Madeleine have a friendly moment while making sandwiches for the drive back to Chicago and she later concedes to George that Madeleine is the one. George expresses his fears that Madeleine will see “his flaws” and leave him.
Meanwhile, we get the most emotion we’ve seen from Johnny since the tape incident. He calls Ashley in the hospital to check in on her and expresses his wish to try again for another baby, which Ashley is very vividly excited about. One wonders if Madeleine and George affected him here.
Driving home, George and Madeline are motionless in the car. George breaks the silence by saying he was “glad to get out of here,” which Madeleine doesn’t immediately respond to. I’m left wondering if maybe it was Madeleine and not George who fell in love with the North Carolina lifestyle these past few days.
That’s the moment I decided to make this my North Carolina movie. The Tarheel State always seems to charm its visitors more than its expats.