Reviews Apr 15 2008 @ 07:00 am
REVIEW: Juno
Directed By: Jason Reitman
Written By: Diablo Cody
Starring: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, J.K. Simmons
Running Time: 96 minutes
Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, sexual content and language
Note: This reviews was originally published February 7, 2008
Call it a fertile year for Hollywood. Hee hee.
Yeah, okay. I’m pretty sure that pun set a new record for awfulness, but somehow 2007 has yielded not one, but two, fantastic comedies about accidental pregnancy. The first, of course, was Knocked Up, a highly commercial farce from The Forty-year-old Virgin director Judd Apatow that somehow managed to rise above its childish, scatological humor and be a highly affecting comedic drama. The second is Juno, which turns out to be almost the exact opposite—a quiet indie film from director Jason Reitman (previously best-known for the equally brilliant Thank You for Smoking). You’d think pregnancy comedies would have been done to death by now (check out 1995’s Nine Months for evidence of that), but somehow Hollywood has managed to mine new gold from the old setup. And they did it the old-fashioned way (no test-tube babies here…hee hee…okay, I’ll stop): interesting storylines and well-developed characters.
Juno centers around the title character (Ellen Page), a laidback, sarcastic high school student who finds herself pregnant after a casual encounter with her “best friend” Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera, coincidentally fresh from the Apatow-produced Superbad). Seeking to deal with the pregnancy responsibly, she finds a wealthy childless couple who are looking to adopt (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) and signs the still-gestating baby over to them. In the meantime, though, she has to deal with her parents, morning sickness, school, and generally realizing how little she knows about life in general.
Or something like that. If it sounds like a thin premise for a movie, maybe it is—but to use the old, tired cliché, this film is more than the sum of its parts. Reitman is aiming here for low-key, character driven comedy, and he hits the mark dead-on. Page (X-men: The Last Stand) essentially carries the picture with hilarious teen-slang banter that falls somewhere in between Gilmore Girls and Napoleon Dynamite. The other characters do an excellent job as well, with one standout being J.K. Simmons as Juno’s father Mac—an old military retiree who comes off as gruff and obnoxious at first, but ultimately wins viewers over as his deep love for his daughter becomes clear. Bateman and Garner also put in top-notch performances—both of them as mostly unsympathetic, but infinitely complex characters that are compelling, even if you don’t particularly like them.
There’s also some social satire here, especially prevalent in a hilarious scene that skewers both the pro-life movement and Planned Parenthood (for those of you keeping score, the pro-life movement wins here—but then, if it hadn’t, there wouldn’t be much of a movie). It’s light, though, and for those characters who represent certain movements or demographics, their main purpose appears to be merely to give the nonchalant and unimpressed Juno something to riff on—which remains entertaining and hilarious throughout the entire film (Page deserves some sort of award here—but the Oscars consistently ignore comedies, so I’m not getting my hopes up).
What’s really being examined here is the human condition: the selfishness of people and their near inability to do something for anyone other than themselves. Though Juno is told throughout the film that she’s doing something “selfless” in giving her baby up, she repeatedly denies it, pointing out that she just doesn’t want to have to raise the thing herself. Garner’s character is bossy and overbearing, and obsessed with becoming a mother to a point of near-creepiness. Her husband is a rockstar-wannabe who fears fatherhood and refuses to grow up. Juno’s parents are both divorced and remarried. In a moment of frustration and honesty, Juno demands to know why relationships “are always so messed up and broken”. Indeed.
The marketing and promotional materials seem to imply that Fox Searchlight Pictures is hoping for lightning to strike twice—i.e., as it did with Napoleon Dynamite (and it seems it has, given the film’s box office receipts). The films are actually very different in origin—the former a being a production of some film students from Idaho, and the latter an independent film with a fairly established director and some notable stars—but are somewhat similar in tone, with their subtle visual imagery and their depiction of high school life that rings truer than most teen comedies (not to mention, of course, their bizarrely named title characters). Where Dynamite was a weirdly over-the-top farce, however, Juno is a much more subtle picture, and arguably a better one. Its comedy comes naturally from its believable characters, and its themes run deeper. It’s just as endlessly quotable, but it’ll stick with you longer, and maybe even make you think.
on Feb 08 2008 @ 7:02 pm 1. Sheri Harrington said …
I loved this movie, and I loved Luke’s review. Of course, I’m somewhat biased (about the review–not the movie) because I’m Luke’s mom, but he really is just so smart! He writes so well, too. Can’t somebody out there give him a paying job doing this?? (You don’t have to publish this, if it’s too embarrassing for Luke.)
on Feb 09 2008 @ 9:43 pm 2. Phillip Johnston said …
What a great film. The balance of comedy and drama is the most impressive thing for me and I can’t remember a recent movie that has done it as well as Juno. Some critics say that it tries to be too hip. Maybe it is, but there is way too much focus on character to write the film off as a hipster-only film.
on May 08 2008 @ 10:47 am 3. Nick Plowman said …
Fave film of 2007 – without a doubt.
on May 08 2008 @ 1:00 pm 4. Colleen said …
I too loved Juno. It did just manage to squeak into my top ten of 2007. I know alot of people have big issues with the dialogue. They claim that no 15yr old would ever talk like that or have weird discussion on obscure film or music. This just boggles my mind, because taking in weird slang, and discussing strange music and film, was just about all my friends did in high school. I pity those people’s boring teenage years.
on May 08 2008 @ 1:48 pm 5. Luke Harrington said …
It is weird how much people’s high school experiences color their very perception of life. I knew tons of people like Juno in high school, but that was the sort of clique I ran with. What’s “realistic” is really just a matter of your experiences.
And while we’re on the subject – why is realistic dialogue such a holy grail to some people? Shouldn’t artists be allowed to stylize their subjects if they want? Or should we lynch Shakespeare for writing in iambic pentameter?
on May 08 2008 @ 2:05 pm 6. Colleen said …
We should lynch Shakespeare, but not for Iambic Pentameter. WS cast such a large shadow over the entire world of playwriters, that he stiffles growth. Go to a bookstore and look at their litature section. WS has shelves (plural) of his works sitting around. Do you see anything by Bernard Shaw, or Thomas Campion, Robert Herrick? Propably not. Shakespeare is IVY. It grows fast and spreads intill everything under it dies from lack of light.
on May 08 2008 @ 2:12 pm 7. Luke Harrington said …
Heh. I’ll warn the bard to stay away from you.
Seriously though, the guy practically invented modern English. It’s hard to overrate something like that.
on May 08 2008 @ 2:28 pm 8. Colleen said …
WS was one of hundreds of playwrights and poets populating England in the 16th and 17th century. You couldn’t cast a stone without taking out some literary git that just so happend to be carring a copy of his lastest book of epigrams based on Martial. The Cavalier poets ruled the day, but we have been stuck with one flavour. I am not saying WS is bad… not at all. We have been done a diservice by having WS as the beginning middle and end of all things literary english. Give me the Earl of Rochester over the bard any day of the week. The real reason the WS holds out over others is the facts WS friends gathered all of his plays together and bound them in one book. His works survives do to book binding and cheap moveable type and the good will of friends.
on May 08 2008 @ 3:09 pm 9. Evan Derrick said …
Wowee Colleen, I’d better not ask your opinion of Homer or Chaucer.
I’m certainly no expert on Shakespeare, but you do make some interesting points on the blanket acceptance of his works as genius. Perhaps similar to Chaplin and Keaton’s status as the silent masters, when Harold Lloyd, who was their equal in the heyday of silent comedy, was forgotten due to his movies being tied up in rights issues with his estate.
Seriously, thanks for adding your two cents, Colleen. I love it when the comments section derails and veers off into some bizarre–yet fascinating–tangent.
on May 08 2008 @ 7:07 pm 10. Luke Harrington said …
The Earl of Rochester? Really? I mean, sure, he wrote a few good poems and all, but…wow. The Earl of Rochester, huh? Huh. Okay.
It is funny what becomes “canon” in the art world (and most other disciplines, as well). A lot of times it has as much to do with timing and serendipity as anything. Once it’s canonized, though, you’re going to have a hard time changing that, particularly centuries down the road.
I’d like to see more people bow down before Christina Rossetti, but it ain’t gonna happen.
on May 11 2008 @ 9:02 pm 11. Mike Phelps said …
I thought Juno was very entertaining and funny. The slang was hilarious, but I can see how it would bug people. My bro-inlaw is one of those people. The whole Planned Parenthood scene was great.
Concerning WS, HS is the only time I had to read the guy. And I read the Cliffs Notes. “Are you ashamed?” you ask. I am not ashamed, my friend! For I had trig/calc to do.
on May 11 2008 @ 11:37 pm 12. Evan Derrick said …
Mike, you Philistine, you! Bow down before the altar of Shakespeare and beg forgiveness!
Glad you liked Juno, man. It’s interesting how many pro-lifeish movies have come out recently. They’re not flagrantly pro-life, but they definitely lean in that direction.
on May 13 2008 @ 9:10 am 13. Luke Harrington said …
Gotta tell ya, man…I always found Cliffs Notes ten times as boring as the actual literature. Sometimes I would try to read Cliffs Notes instead, only to give up and go back to the book. It was longer, but I got through it faster.
on Jan 01 2009 @ 9:20 am 14. [review]: Juno « …yet made of stars said …
[...] January 1, 2009 Cross-posted at: MovieZeal [...]
on Jan 06 2009 @ 7:07 am 15. [review]: Baby Mama « …yet made of stars said …
[...] to quit. The whole thing feels too busy to really develop the way it wants to—sort of like if Juno got trapped in the body of an Adam Sandler comedy. This should have been a comedy about pregnancy [...]