Cinnamon Fizz nail polish, Cliff’s Notes to Huckleberry Finn, Zingers on the bottom pantry shelf, and other such sundries of Americana pop up in Phil Morrison’s feature film debut and infuse it with a buoyant giddiness. Not often does a movie conjure an air of adorability without coming across a tad twee, but Junebug—the title itself straightforwardly sweet in the same vein—manages it nicely. With flavorful quips like, “God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay that way,” the narrative falls into the dysfunctional family category but has a singular charm. Neither sweepingly cynical like American Beauty, nor as cheesily goofy as Home for the Holidays, and eschewing pretensions towards universal applicability, its wayward slice-of-life description finds nuance in the specificity of place and family to achieve a unique blend of unexpected humor and unsentimental humanism.

After falling in love at first sight—a matter efficiently dispensed with during the opening credits—Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) takes a trip down South with her newly minted husband, George (Alessandro Nivola), combining a business venture—scoping out a new artist for the gallery which she curates—with a meet-George’s-parents visit. While Peg (Celia Weston) plays the part of disapproving mother and Eugene (Scott Wilson) that of gentle and soft-spoken father, George’s younger brother Johnny (rendered, remarkably, without distraction, by The O.C.’s Ben McKenzie) glares at everyone out of the corners of his eyes and festers with a diffuse bitterness as his pregnant wife, Ashley (an amazing Amy Adams), sparkles with irrepressible and worshipful curiosity of her new sister-in-law.

A slim and graceful big-city beauty, perfectly-manicured English accent, and history of extensive travel and cultural pursuit render Madeleine unmistakably an outsider here in her husband’s North Carolina hometown, an experience, one suspects, with which she is familiar given her affinity for self-taught outsider art. From the beginning, her difference is made abundantly clear, as she greets Johnny by taking his face in her hands and kissing him, European-style, on both cheeks, her perceived strangeness amply testified to by the discombobulated look on his face. It’s evinced in an even more lovely fashion after Ashley paints Madeleine’s fingers, as they bond over a shared bad habit of biting toenails; once Peg send the mother-to-be off for a nap, Madeleine bums a cigarette, places it delicately behind her ear with an easy utterance of “ta”—British slang for “thank you”—and, as Peg eyes her warily, flaps her arms to dry her nails: an exotic bird in their midst.

A plethora of exquisite moments such as these give Junebug its captivating aura. Whether Johnny’s sweetness inadvertently shining through a perpetual scowl as he scrambles to tape a television program on meerkats (Ashley’s favorite animals), Eugene casually passing Peg a wooden bird he’s carved to replace a damaged one, Madeline’s expression of delight upon hearing George sing a hymn at a church function, or unflappable Ashley’s launching into yet another litany of questions, Morrison produces his desired effect (as gleaned from the press notes) of creating “transcendent moments.”

Besides these instances of unforced tenderness, Junebug’s dynamics find structure in the ongoing cacophony of the household. Often the director cuts away mid-conversation to other rooms, where occupants either listen in, or attempt to drown-out the muffled sound of voices and, in some cases, the impassioned tones of newlywed lovemaking. This wandering visualization captures the sense of family as a unit, an organism unto itself (appropriately, the entire clan smokes out of the same pack of cigarettes), with the lovingness and annoyingness such inseparability entails. The constant buzz of a full house is counterbalanced by moments of contemplative silence—images of empty rooms, a neighbor slowly crossing her lawn, bees on the grass—contributing to a variegated evocation of the rhythms of daily life in this sleepy corner of the U.S. of A. Because Junebug is otherwise scored or filled with chatter, these moments resonate with a curious, peaceful throbbing.

But a nagging flaw lies at the heart of the film’s conception. Although Morrison and screenwriter Angus MacLachlan clearly intend George as the charismatic center, the character is something of a cipher. Appealingly handsome as he is, Nivola’s allure is more subdued than that necessitated by the script and, because we know so little of him besides the halo-glow which supposedly surrounds him (much discussed by family and friends), this makes it difficult to sympathize when the story belatedly takes a vaguely judgmental tone on his behalf.

When Amy’s birth-giving coincides with an urgency to lock up a contract with local artist David Wark (Frank Hoyt Taylor), Madeleine chooses to pursue the latter course rather then go to the hospital, upon which George stonily reprimands, “It means something: family.” The character and director possibly want us to side with them against her in an assumed position of moral superiority —family over career, Southern hospitality over misplaced Yankee values—but the words seem disingenuous coming from the one person who’s been most disengaged. Hiding out in the basement or going for coffee on his own, George has absented himself from interactions with his relatives while leaving his new wife to fend for herself in this intimidating first encounter with the in-laws, revealing a glaring insensitivity on his part. And though Madeleine handles it with equanimity (and Davidtz’s warmth ensures she doesn’t come off as snobbish though there are hints she’s meant to be regarded as such), George emerges the martyr, staying by Ashley’s bedside through the night. When his wife later calls with news of securing the art, she’s made to seem ridiculous, allowed to prattle on about sealing the deal in exchange for a fruit basket before George almost smugly informs her of the baby’s death.

The scolding somewhat mars the previous blitheness with which Junebug has coasted along, but, fortunately Morrison bats cleanup well, by leaving issues appropriately messy, in the true-to-life way of most families: Some tensions disperse while other resentments are left unarticulated and unresolved, Madeleine remains not-good-enough for Mom’s golden boy (her only concession: “She’s got lovely hands, I’ll give her that”), and the goodbyes are happily unceremonious.