Title: Junebug
Year: 2005
Director: Phil Morrison
Writer: Angus MacLachlan
Stars: Amy Adams (Enchanted), Embeth Davidtz (“Mad Men”), Alessandro Nivolla, Ben McKenzie (“Southland”)

The Story: A chic Chicago gallery owner marries a hunky transplant from North Carolina. When she wants to do business with an untrained painter who lives near his hometown, she quickly gets wrapped up in ups and downs of his family, especially his effervescent sister-in-law.

Why It’s Great: The supposed “red state / blue state divide” has so thoroughly poisoned the American dialogue that it’s now shocking to see a movie that’s equally sympathetic towards both big city art-dealers and their small-town religious kin. Davidtz refuses to understand the attitudes of her husband’s family and they do no better with her, but we quietly realize that the conflicts across the cultural divide are just the symptoms of the long-simmering conflicts within each culture. Class resentment becomes the scapegoat for the unspoken resentments at the heart of both families. The direction and the acting tease a lot of meaning out of the understated script. With each line, we understand instantly (a) what the person is trying to say, (b) what they’re unintentionally revealing about themselves, and (c) how the other person is hearing something completely different. And yet, while we’re acutely aware of everyone’s failings, we remain sympathetic to them all.

FOUR more reasons in the super-sized entry over at Cockeyed Caravan.