Odd to think it, but Amy Adams’ Oscar-nominated turn as Junebug’s impossibly nice, heavily pregnant, hungry-eyed, ticker-tape-talking Southern belle is based on a real person – writer Angus MacLachlan’s sister-in-law, whom Adams met for the part. “She’d just got back from Subway and made us all food!” exclaims Adams in the disc interviews, and it is this innate understanding and warmth towards easily patronisable characters that sets the movie apart.

“There was some opposition to filming here for financial reasons,” says MacLachlan of the North Carolina location in one of five excellent Making Of featurettes. “But we felt the actors really needed to feel it.” So, while the set-up (Chicago-living country boy Alessandro Nivola brings new wife, urban sophisticate Embeth Davidtz, back to his redneck roots) is the stuff of a thousand scriptwriting classes, this is less comedy of manners, more a fridge-humming study of domestic banality, sibling rivalry and intellectual mistrust in Jesusland, USA.

It’s Adams – seen nailing her character’s childlike belief in innate goodness from the off in the audition extra – who is easily the star here, giving a display rich in huggable pathos. MacLachlan’s low-key script does err too much towards the unsaid – the frosty relationship between Nivola and his brother is never explained, for instance – but the host of extras more than compensate, making this a ’Bug well worth catching.

DVD Extras:

Cast commentary
Interviews
Deleted scenes
Five Making Of featurettes
Original casting sessions