Plot
A dealer in "outsider" art travels from Chicago to North Carolina to meet her new in-laws, challenging the equilibrium of this middle class Southern home.

Release Year: 2005

Rating: 7.0/10 (13,429 voted)

Critic's Score: 80/100

Director: Phil Morrison

Stars: Embeth Davidtz, Alessandro Nivola, David Kuhn

Storyline
Successfull Carolinian George Johnsten meets Chicago art gallery holder Madeleine at an electoral benefit art auction- love at first sight. Madeleine decides to meet a Southern original artist, so George seizes the opportunity to come along and present her to his South Carolina parents Eugene and Peg, drop-out brother Johhny and his high-pregnant wife Ashly. Confronting the outsider soon opens a can of worms as emotions revive or emerge, like admiration and jealousy.

Cast:
Embeth Davidtz - Madeleine
David Kuhn - Auctioneer
Alessandro Nivola - George
Alicia Van Couvering - Bernadette
Jerry Minor - Scout who stays outside
Matt Besser - Scout who goes in
Will Oldham - Bill Mooney, scout
Frank Hoyt Taylor - David Wark
Scott Wilson - Eugene
Ben McKenzie - Johnny
Celia Weston - Peg
Amy Adams - Ashley
Bobby Tisdale - Norman Venable at Replacements, Ltd.
Beth Bostic - Lucille, the neighbor
Joanne Pankow - Sissy, David Wark's sister

Official Website: Sony Classics [United States] |

Release Date: 22 February 2006

Filming Locations: Wake Forest University - 1834 Wake Forest Road, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA

Box Office Details

Budget: $1,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $74,739 (USA) (7 August 2005) (7 Screens)

Gross: $3,399,228 (Worldwide)

Runtime: 106 min

Trivia:
In the scene where Ashley (Amy Adams) does her sit up exercises, director Phil Morrison used a split screen, combining the performance of a real pregnant woman with Adams's head.

Goofs:
Continuity: When Madeleine is having her nails done, her right and left legs are crossed in different shots.

Quotes:
Peg: [examining an antique baby spoon] I don't believe that can go in the dishwasher...

An excellent study of characters with a strong sense of place.

Rating: 9/10

A very intelligent script, with direction that does it justice. Rather than spelling out exactly what we're supposed to be thinking and feeling at every moment, the filmmakers respect the audience's ability to infer meaning from the mood and tone, from the light in a frame or the ambient noise of a scene (or, for that matter, from the complete silence in which we occasionally are allowed to contemplate the house and small town where the story is set). As for the actors, they must have been thrilled to have the chance to play such complex, well-rounded characters, each of them at times being fine and even something like noble, at other times frustrating and perhaps even cruel. Just like real people, in other words. Amy Adams deserves the praise she's received for a role that could have easily been a caricature, but I'd like to also mention Embeth Davidtz for her precise and empathetic work in another part that might have easily been done in a hackneyed way.

All through this film, there are moments where we fear that its makers are going to settle for the cliché, but they never do. By the end, we feel that we've learned a great deal about the characters and the community which produced them, and we also sense that we'll never fully grasp all of their mysteries and contradictions. Very fine work from everyone involved.

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