I saw Juno a couple nights ago (I also saw Walk Hard and have loose plans to go see Charlie Wilson’s War, but I’ll write about those two movies another time) and I have to first apologize for the link that I provided in my last blog post. I read the beginning of the article and then stopped because I wanted to see the movie first. After going back and reading the whole thing, I noticed that the last several paragraphs (on the second page of the article) provide a couple fairly major spoilers that would have upset me. I won’t mention them but consider this your warning!
As for the movie, I thought it was well done. I understand the buzz behind Ellen Page’s performance; she gives Juno a biting wit and manages to make her pregnancy believable (one of my qualms going into the movie). However, I’m not sure I see an Oscar nomination in her future. She turns Juno into one of the more memorable protagonists in recent films yet it doesn’t seem like the kind of role that the Academy usually celebrates (which is too bad). Additionally, I think that a lot of Juno’s charm comes from her speech; first-time screenwriter Diablo Cody sets Juno up with a stream of gems that Page delivers with the timing of a screen veteran.
I do have a couple issues with the script. First, I think that the movie (perhaps like a teenager?) went through a bit of an identity crisis. It seemed at the beginning that Juno appeared on track to be another goofy Napoleon Dynamite type of movie (for example, there were too many goofy characters in the first fifteen minutes, one of which could be Napoleon’s distant cousin). Similarly, the dialogue between Juno and her friend Leah seemed to be filtered through a thesaurus at the beginning of the movie; the audience would easily see Juno’s wit and intelligence even if she didn’t try to pack in a bunch of SAT words while talking on her Cheeseburger phone.
Once Cody’s script, skillfully directed by Jason Reitman (whose Thank You For Smoking shares a similar off-beat satirical charm), got through these growing pains, Juno became a movie about relationships. Bleeker, the father of Juno’s child, is the awkward and sincere foil to Juno’s sarcastic demeanor. While Michael Cera seems to be the go-to guy for sweet-yet-awkward teenage characters (which he does well in Arrested Development and Superbad), his performance is more than just awkward gawking. We see Bleeker’s heart break as Juno pushes him away, and runs (literally) by her side despite these distances.
The two sets of parents - Juno’s father and step-mother (another tremendous performance from Allison Janney, who will always be C.J. Cregg to me) and the potential adoptive parents (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman, both superb for surprisingly different reasons) - showcase the different sides of the modern American family. Ultimately, both sets provide Juno with different perspectives on nurturing relationships and help Juno through her pregnancy. Juno certainly matures through the process; some of which is expected, some of which is unwanted (as she astutely notes, she deals with “things beyond my maturity level”), but Juno comes out of the entire process a stronger woman with a new appreciation for family and friends.
Speaking of relationships, I’d be remiss to leave out the music in the film. Yes, I spent a bit of my time identifying the records on Juno’s floor (Patti Smith’s Horses, appropriately) and posters on Mark’s wall, but the true musical gems were in Kimya Dawson’s song that ran throughout the movie. These songs narrate Juno’s inner monologue and help to guide the viewer through her roller coaster pregnancy. Additionally, Dawson’s “Anyone Else But You” is the soundtrack to an extremely tender moment between Bleeker and Juno at the end of the film (and, in my opinion, an incredibly endearing and realistic ending).
Juno’s greatest strength, as Hulbert wrote in her Slate article, comes in the realism in the movie. Juno portrays a pregnant teen without turning her into a pariah or a political statement, and everything in her world - her family, friends, emotions, school - are realistic. Going into the movie (and over the first ten minutes or so) I worried that Juno would be too over-the-top. However, Page’s performance and Cody’s script mold Juno into a conflicted blend of sarcastic and aloof detachment with teenage uncertainty and vulnerability. As her pregnancy progresses, you’ll become more attached to Juno and her support system (and appalled by those who betray her) .
Juno manages to provide an amusing look at or society without seeming trite or heavy-handed. Instead, the film uses comedy to examine how pregnancy affects everyone (young and old) and make a statement about the modern American family.
