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December 31, 2007

Juno is touching, humorous look at teenage angst

I just happened to see Juno yesterday (Christmas Day). The movie was advertised as a comedy. Although there are a number of funny spots and lines in the release, it’s more than a comedy. It’s a charming, 9-month slice of a female teenager’s life, and how one particular teenager, the Juno of the title, handles bumps that occur in a girl’s life. At the end of the movie, I was smiling.

It’s also marketed as an edgy, quirky independent film, but with the number of television commercials aired I would say it has a major studio release budget, and of course, since it’s distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures, it has.

Everyone has gone to High School with a Juno. Juno is that smart alec independent tomboy, cute, refreshing and fun to be around but not cool to date or be seen with. The acting by Ellen Page was excellent.

This film was well cast, well paced, had the proper amount of cynical language while still being balanced with enough poignancy and heart to make it believable and palatablelatable.

I’ve always said the mark of a good movie is the character actors and their performances. They all deliver in this movie, the movie is . I’m not going to go overboard and say its the best movie this year but it is one that I would recommend.

One of the faults is the dialogue. While it is quite often humorous, it’s not always realistic. For instance, a clerk at a drugstore — where Juno gets her pregnancy test-kit — speaks in rhyming prose; or a girl moving a chair, carpet and rug from various places to set it up adjacent to her male friends house so she can sit in the chair, with a pipe in her mouth, and tell him she’s pregnant. Cute, yes, realistic no. Entertaining, definitely.

Another fault is that Juno encounters virtually no problems — or at least only minor setbacks — along the way. She is not kicked out of school or ostracized by her classmates, her parents are supportive, the boyfriend doesn’t disappear on her and the adoptive couple, while facing their own problems, don’t turn out to be too bad.

But, in my opinion, despite the films faults, it’s one of the films that is worth more than the price of admission. Go see it. Suspend your disbelief. You will probably be enchanted by the characters if not the situations.

Cast: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janney, J.K. Simmons, Olivia Thirlby, Eileen Pedd, Rainn Wilson, Daniel Clark, Darla Vandenbossche, Aman Johal, Valerie Tian, Emily Perkins and Kaaren de Zilva

Juno

Rating (***1/2 out of *****)

Synopsis: Juno stars Ellen Page as the title character, a whip-smart teen confronting an unplanned pregnancy by her classmate Bleeker (Cera). With the help of her hot best friend Leah (Thirlby), Juno finds her unborn child a “perfect” set of parents: an affluent suburban couple, Mark and Vanessa (Bateman and Garner), longing to adopt. Luckily, Juno has the total support of her parents (Simmons and Janney) as she faces some tough decisions, flirts with adulthood and ultimately figures out where she belongs.

The journey of Juno MacGuff is open to many interpretations. Yet for all the obstacles and moral dilemmas thrown her way, audiences are likely to give in to her unassuming charm and vivacity for life, no matter what viewpoint they take on the issues of teen pregnancy and family. In the end, it is the bond with her family and the choices she makes along the road to self discovery that make Juno such an unforgettable character.

Writer Diablo Cody said the film should elicit strong feelings about what the movie says on the topic of teen pregnancy. “It is a hot button issue. You can look at it as a film that celebrates life and celebrates childbirth, or you can look at it as a film about a liberated young girl who makes a choice to continue being liberated. Or you can look at it as some kind of twisted love story, you know, a meditation on maturity,” she said, adding that the film’s storyline and character developments go beyond just teen pregnancy.

“It raises a lot of questions about love, freedom, marriage and where we’re ultimately supposed to wind up in life.”

While it may raise those questions for some audiences, Allison Janney said it doesn’t force a message down anyone’s throat. “It’s not trying to be political at all. You just have a story about something that happens to a girl in her life and what she decides to do,” said the actress who plays Juno’s mother said. “It’s not trying to make a statement, which I really like.”

Statement or not, it’s Juno’s journey that is the most fascinating thing to watch for its lead actress. “She goes on a long, tricky road,” concluded Page. “She has this idea of what it is to be an adult and desire to be that way as I think you are in adolescence–you’re stuck between two worlds. And she comes out on the other end all right.”

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 94 minutes

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