Juno (Reitman, 2007)

[madali]

Juno (Reitman, 2007)
IMDB Link

“Cuz you know, they say pregnancy often leads to, you know…infants.”

For the past couple of years, we have these indie cool movies that I never know if I will hate or love. You see, their unique genre qualities sometimes get on my nerves, other times it clicks perfectly. They all have basically the same ideas, quirky characters (most even have unique first names), tons of soft rock indie music, montages set to these music, coming of age story, the smart but different main characters, and so on. I do watch them, because even though most make me mad, there are the occasional few that for reasons I’m not yet smart enough to figure out works for me. “Ghost World” is one example. “Igby Goes Down” is another.

And now so is “Juno”. I think one reason it works for me, is because I half fell in love with Ellen Page as Juno. Her dialogues might have been extremely annoying and trying to hard on other actresses, but Page says so believably, that it does not feel like a scripwriter’s words, but her own.  That might be because she sort of looks like a younger Janeane Garofalo, and Garofalo is one of those few actresses for me that I can find funny. I think I have a thing for girls that have this weird non-lady like voices (aside from these two, the third example is that girl from “Dead Like Me”).

And then you also have Michael Cera as the boyfriend, who I am sure will one day becoming tiring since he plays the same roles every time, but so far what he is doing is likable, and no other young actor can play the characters he plays with the same kind of charm.

Every else is also good, and they are all familiar faces (there is even Dwight from “The Office”). I think one of other major highlights of the movie is that effort has been put in the supporting characters. Instead of sprinkling it with eccentric one-trick characters, the movie instead spends more time with crucial people in Juno’s lives, like her father and stepmother, both of which are smart and good parents. There is not much I disliked about the movie, it was funny and smart, and best of all, it just made me feel good watching it, which usually indie cool movies do the exact opposite to me (fuck you, “Garden State”). If there is anything I would change about “Juno” is the constant musical background. I didn’t like it when it was soft rock indie music with montage for a few minutes, one small scene, and another song with montage. That was a bit annoying, and a lot of this does lessen impact of the songs. And speaking of annoying things, phrases like “honest to blog?” instead of “honest to God?” should never, ever be used in a movie again.

 “Juno” just proves that all it takes to make a movie like this work is a bit of sincerity, good performance, and…actually, no, I still am not sure why one works and another doesn’t. I’ll figure it out one day though, this is a genre which is always a surprise to me, in terms of my reaction to it.

4/5

[madali]

This one of those films where the screenwriter's name pops up more than the directors in discussions of the movie (good or bad)

[fizz]

Mad...our lives interconnect yet again, just finished writing my mini-review to compliment yours. Yes, this is the writers movie.

Review:

In Juno the film, Juno the character utters every piece of dialogue like a one liner delivered with a punch. Ellen Page has the gift of the gab, unlike any single character this year. She has an energy and manic disregard that makes her so very appealing. Where another parent, in another film, might have wanted to reprimand her for her 'shenanigans' - getting pregnant at the age of 16, her father (J.K. Simmons) is able to accept her mistake and move on. Its not just her radiant charm that allows for this, she has an undeniable honesty that makes her real, if not slightly manufactured in a blithly constructed quirky movie way.

I'm not nuts about the story - present day America is mad about how hip it is to be pregnant, and movies like this and Knocked Up, along with Tabloid fodder about movie/pop stars becoming mom's to be, are probably the fuel for this trend. It is the execution, Rietman's colourful, indie-pop style and scriptwriter Diablo Cody's acerbic dialogue, that keep this fresh, at times poignant but mostly sincere. In fact, if anything, writer Cody deserves more accolade than anyone else for putting together, with great delicacy, a story that might have gone an entirely different route (abortion for e.g.) or taken a much more nefarious undertone. The star of the story might be Juno, but the star of the film is scriptwriter Cody.

Rating: 4/5

[madali]

See! Even Fizz mentions Cody

[kaytee]

i just got my kff for it, watching it tomorrow...tonight it is Joshua...

[kaytee]

This movie is nothing more than a teen comedy told in a different way. I don't see why it is getting all these awards buzz, yes the writing is funny, Ellen Page is excellent but to me it is just another teen comedy. I actually liked the soundtrack of the movie and the side story of Garner and Bateman. All characters were so brutally honest in every scene which is why the story was so believable.

Michael Cera is his normal self but I dont know for how long can he pull this off...

Mad I kinda enjoyed the whole soft rock thing going on. It gave the movie a good feel vibe to it and didnt make it too serious.

But on the whole dont understand what the whole awards buzz is all about, this is just another fresh teen comedy.

[madali]

Well, fresh teen comedy is sometimes good enough, since they're almost never fresh

[fizz]

The film doesn't have a lot of awards buzz (Independent spirit, but thats about it). The rest of it is mostly critical acclaim. The bulk of the nominations have been for screenplay and leading lady performances, which still doesn't make this a big awards contender.

It's easy to think of this film as overrated...and it is to an extent, but that might have something to do with the time of the year when we have seen it (especially after Ebert crowned it his no 1 for the year!).

[madali]

Jumping the snark: The Juno backlash (backlash)

[sandeep]

I saw it today and really enjoyed it... playing a 16 year old with such ease and having that ''blank'' expression, dont care attitude, forthright, is difficult and surely deserves ellen pag the oscar nomination... the writing, as mentioned earlier, is so clever, as so much of the current culture is captured very effectively, full points to cody and a deserved oscar win as well... One point about the movie though, it is not as much of a comedy as also a semi serious film, so I wouldn't walk in expecting a lot of laughs... a lot of reflection yes...

Definitely worth a watch
4/5

[madali]

Ellen Page is becoming the in young actor now