Juno is a Must See!

I have a low tolerance for cuteness in a movie. I’m not talking about what you find in chick flicks or a moment of levity in a drama, but the cuteness that generally dominates indie films. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, but that I feel used and dirty when I succumb to cheap ploys and gimmicks.

In recent memory the worst offender of being artificially cute was Little Miss Sunshine. I could stomach it all until the end of the movie when the family dances on stage in a moment of solidarity with the film’s adorable female lead. At that instant I threw up all the phony moments, enduringly optimistic scenes, and folksy charm that I had been struggling to swallow throughout the movie. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the film, which I did, but the example is supposed to illustrate a tool indie films are prone to relying on.

I bring all this up say that where Little Miss Sunshine falls flat on its face, Juno rises up to overcome the indie tendency for schmaltziness. Juno is a fun movie that tackles serious issues without getting bogged down with any message, and instead focuses on people and their interactions.

Juno is about the unplanned pregnancy of 16 year old Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page), and her decision to give up her child for adoption. Juno is unlike any girl I’ve ever met, and for the sake of full disclosure I need to admit that like her partner in baby making, Paulie Bleekr (Michael Cera), I love her. She’s head strong, hilarious, and loves punk rock, but doesn’t dress like it. Her only flaw as a character is that she’s too perfect, spurting banter and philosophy that seems injected at points merely for screenwriter Diablo Cody to show off how funny she is, except that you don’t care because you’re enjoying the movie too much to get hung up on such details.

Critics have called this Ellen Page’s coming out party, and I’m going to have to agree and predict she’ll receive an Oscar nomination for this film. In any given scene she can be courageous and strong willed, while remaining fragile and unsure of her next step at the same time. The movie deals with her character’s early entrance into adulthood as she deals with adult issues, and Ellen Page does a tremendous job bringing the audience along for the ride.

Juno also benefits from a particularly strong supporting cast, which is important for the character Juno, who finds strength from the people in her life. Jennifer Garner is especially compelling as the potential parent for Juno’s baby, and contrasted with her onscreen husband (Jason Bateman), she reaches new heights as an actress with this chance to parade emotion and intensity. Another interesting aspect of the movie is the new depth Michael Cera has brought to the character he has been perfecting since Arrested Development. He’s not a bumbling moron that got lucky without a condom, which would have been a disservice to the female lead, but instead he’s a complicated character that acts and reacts appropriately.

I wouldn’t say that it’s a flaw of the movie that none of the characters in the film are caricatures of what we expect in the instance of a teenage pregnancy, but I would say the constant displays of rationality by all the main characters is strange. This fact could be why the movie has played so well with the country as a whole, in that it deals with issues, abortion and teen pregnancy, which are so often painted as black and white, and are so often argued from the extremes that it’s easy to forget the people living in the middle who actually deal with these issues.

The movie concludes with a duet between Juno and Paulie, which could have caused me to gag in any other film, but it doesn’t feel forced and is easily digested. The duet is also in keeping with the excellent music throughout the film that adds to every scene without causing a ruckus.

Juno may have been the best movie of 2007, and as such I’d adamantly recommend seeing this movie.