Juno
A snappy-talking teen named Juno (Ellen Page), finds herself pregnant to her sweet but similarly immature boyfriend, Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). Her parents are disappointed. They would have preferred something less disruptive to their daughter’s life, such as expulsion from school, or even a drug problem.
Nevertheless, they support her decision to have the baby. Her father even accompanies her to a meeting with prospective parents to whom Juno is considering adopting out her baby, when it is born.
Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman depict the hopeful couple. Jennifer Garner is especially good as the brooding wife. Bateman’s character, though considered “old” by Juno’s standards, is a man trapped in an adolescent’s mind: hardly ready to be responsible for someone else.
The pregnancy is a time during which there will be changes to more than just Juno’s physique. How will Juno cope with the pregnancy, and what effect will this have on her relationship with her boyfriend? How does a prospective couple prepare for the arrival of a newborn, being brought into the world by someone else?
Juno engages in an unconventional relationship with the parents-to-be. This relationship exposes some interesting facts about them, and, having been initiated and maintained primarily by Juno, reflects her direct, no-fuss approach to life.
As Juno, Ellen Page is very good, though, interestingly, not radically different from the character she played in the challenging film “Hard Candy”. Michael Cera, as her boyfriend “Bleeker” also plays a character very similar to the one that made him widely known (as the awkward George-Michael in the hilarious series “Arrested Development”, which, curiously, also starred Jason Bateman). Nevertheless, Cera was a perfect choice for the role of Bleker.
J.K. Simons is reliably good as Juno’s father, and Allison Janney excels in the small but significant role of her mother. Janney has such a range, and is believable in roles depicting characters from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. She’s also equally comfortable – and good – in comedy and drama, and doesn’t disappoint in Juno.
Juno is another of a number of films in recent years, with a quirky feel, courtesy of snappy dialogue, unconventional (realisitic?) characters, and a simple, folksy acoustic and vocal soundtrack. The opening titles pretty much establish the mood of the film.
Juno won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. That’s significant, as many of the teens’ lines are far more urbane than their characters would actually be. Is this important? Not in and of itself, but recently, Massachusets officials were labelling a spate of teen pregnancies “The Juno Effect”, claiming that this film encouraged teens to have children. It’s absurd to blame such behaviour on a film, of course, but it is interesting to see how, on occasion, screen media can influence impressionable young people, who aspire to be as cool as the teen characters they watch on screen, that have ostensibly been devised by creative adults.
Juno is a good film, and quite possibly one that you will want to revisit. For this viewer, it was Garner and Janney who stood out, in this fresh take on the teen pregnancy theme.