The new wave; As a struggling young wife in Junebug, Amy Adams is a revelation.(Biography)

Byline: Jeffrey Frank

Actors are terribly sneaky: Just when you think you know who they are, they become someone else. Consider Amy Adams, whose previous screen incarnations include the scheming stepsister in Cruel Intentions 2 and a bikini-clad seductress in Psycho Beach Party. Now, in a bright jewel of a new independent film called Junebug, Adams takes an enormous artistic leap, playing a young pregnant woman named Ashley. Audiences will find themselves rooting for her character as if she were a member of the family.

Ashley is garrulous, generous, devoted-and despairing. Her marriage is in perpetual meltdown, and what's worse, she's forced to live with her in-laws. When Ashley's brother-in-law, George (Alessandro Nivola), and his worldly new wife, Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz), arrive for a visit, the family reunion jangles, inevitably, with cultural and emotional clashes. Ashley is fascinated, and a little awed, by Madeleine, a British-born art dealer.

Junebug's director, Phil Morrison, was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, near where the film was shot, and one senses a striking authenticity throughout-from church suppers to baby showers, there appears to have been a seamless connection between the professional cast and the regional extras. "They really did bring us into the community," Adams says, adding, "Phil and I went to church every Sunday. When you're a part of it, you feel it." In scene after radiant scene, the actress-her eyes bright blue, her hair a deep red-moves effortlessly between being funny and affecting, as when she turns to her ...