'My favourite animal is the meerkat', says the pregnant young wife in this entertaining debut feature by Phil Morrison. It’s an American family-clash drama in a genre which stretches from ‘Guess who’s Coming to Dinner to ‘Meet the Fokkers’ and the meerkat motif stretches beyond the brightly chatty Ashley, desperate to bond with her new sister-in-law. Here a manipulative Chicago art-dealer, resembling nothing so much as a Lesley Caron update with an English accent, drops in with her spouse on his North Carolina homestead. She is in the neighbourhood to strike a deal with a grizzled old timer with a penchant for churning out cartoon-like depictions of key civil-war battles.

Meerkat girl herself belongs to a whole line of bright but clueless southern belles who rely on the kindness of strangers but are doomed to disappointment. Certainly Amy Adams, Oscar nominated for cheerfulness in the face of extreme aggravation, sets a new standard for the kind of forced brightness that’s due any minute to tip over into hysteria.

Whilst the broken-reed patriarch prowls the cellar looking for his screwdriver and the tough as old boots matriarch keeps a house that wouldn’t shame a funeral parlour, the neighbours wave from their neat lawns in a slightly unhinged fashion whilst social life revolves around the chapel. It’s a bit like The Archers without the agriculture.

Having said that, it’s not without its moving moments, the best of which is the scene where Madeleine goggles in astonishment as her husband of six months reaches back to his roots and sings an 'a capella' anthem with a couple of his old school pals.

In fact, the misunderstandings and social gaffes are affecting just because the film makes you sympathise with all the characters, even the surly young father-to-be spoiling the atmosphere at the Baby Shower by swearing in the basement when he can’t find his taped sport video - all that’s on TV is a programme about meerkats. Most of all, though, you sympathise with the husband who can’t wait to return to city life, where the cartoons stay on the canvas, where meerkats are as rare as eerie forests bordering North Carolina houses or as Junebugs in sunny meadows.