Junebug Amy Adams and the Movie House in North Carolina
Junebug – The movie Junebug came out in 2005 starring one of my favorite actresses Amy Adams nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Ashley. The plot starts out with 6 month newlyweds Madeline and George making a trip from their home in Chicago to North Carolina so Madeline, an art dealer, can influence an artist to show at her gallery. It’s a good trip for the couple since they got married and Madeline never met George’s family who live close to the artist’s home.
I like how the movie’s pace moves along kinda slow, like the south, and all the still shots shown that tells the story in itself. It reminds me of the pace and tone of my favorite TV series, Enlightened. Time to frown because rumor has it Enlightened is being cancelled by HBO. Anyhoo- there is a lot of quiet, subtle, defining moments depicting southern family dynamics and culture in the film that make it memorable.
Scrotums! First stop on the trip for the newlyweds is to see the artist that George’s wife Madeline, played by Embeth Davidta, wants to convince to show his work at her gallery. She say’s she likes everything including the computers and “all the scrotums.” I don’t get it! I don’t like the scrotums and I don’t want to look at them on my wall. I am borderline unsophisticated.
The nursery- Scott Wilson who plays Eugene, George’s reserved father, gets the nursery ready for his son and new daughter-in-law to sleep in. Younger brother Johnny, played by Benjamin McKenzie, got married to Ashley before they finished high school. Ashley is pregnant and Johnny is trying to get his GED. The oh so young couple have problems especially with having to live at home with Johnny’s mom and dad and Ashley tries to over compensate and believes the tried and rarely true (baby) will rescue their marriage.
Smoking! There’s a lot of smoking going on. Here is judgmental Mom and never good enough Johnny having a smoke before the “golden boy older brother” arrives with his new wife. Love seeing the old oven and real life mess on the kitchen counters.
Madeline’s first moment alone at the in-laws calls for a smoke.
Ashley is the sweetest thing made in heaven and a bit naive and immature. Here she wants to pretend play beauty parlor with her new sophisticated sister-in-law, Madeline, by painting her nails for her. She tells Madeline in the movie that she wants to name her baby Junebug. She really wants Johnny to love her like he did in high school.
Johnny works at Replacements, LTD which is a real company in McLeansville, North Carolina where filming took place for the movie. It is at 1089 Knox Road. Replacements, LTD has a huge selection of old and new dinnerware like china, crystal, glassware, silver, stainless, and collectibles. I used to spend hours on their site looking at dinnerware patterns. It was my guilty dinnergate. If you have a set of dinnerware that needs replacement pieces, this is the place to look.
Ashley doing sit-ups to keep in shape after the baby. IMDb trivia states in this scene the director combined a real pregnant woman doing sit-ups with Amy Adam’s head.
The baby – The baby is stillborn and husband Johnny didn’t stick around, leaving his brother George to stay and comfort Ashley where she says “You always know what I need.”
The Junebug movie house – Here’s the scoop per IMDb trivia. Two real houses in Winston-Salem, North Carolina were used for filming. One house for internal shots and one for external shots, plus the two houses were down the street from each other. The house seen above for external shots was also used for the basement and garage scenes, which I did not include today.
A couple of days before shooting, all the lawns in the neighborhood were full of Junebugs. The real houses were also conveniently empty and made shooting the movie that much easier. – per a Q & A with director Phil Morrison and writer Angus Maclachlan at Eurekavideo.co.uk
The movie was filmed in the North Carolina towns of Pfafftown, McLeansville, and Winston-Salem. –wikipedia
Perfect for me! There are loads of scenes in the movie that show empty rooms accompanied by silence to convey what is happening in the background or to take you to a place in the house. Colonial chairs and wooden cafe curtains are a blast.
The following are some of the still shots around the house in the movie.
One of the last scenes in Junebug showing the empty kitchen. George and Madeline are leaving now and no baby is coming home.
~ THE END ~
