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JUNO Send This Review to a Friend
Amid the rush of late-opening films for 2007 there is the excitement surrounding “Juno,” which brightens the scene as one of the year’s most outstanding films highlighted by one of the year’s outstanding performances. “Juno” is about a 16-year-old high school girl who gets pregnant in a one-night stand. But it is not a pro or con film about the right to an abortion, nor is it an advocacy film about motherhood. It is a film about growing up, falling in love and gaining a sense of self amid the uncertainties of adulthood. The film also boasts one of the year’s best screenplays, written by Diablo Cody, who takes the film in unexpected directions that lead it away from clichés and toward freshness.
It doesn’t take long for actress Ellen Page to win one’s heart as Juno, who utters teenage speak and wisecracks about her life and the world as seen from her perspective. Her sexual escapade with a nice but rather clumsy fellow student is innocently thoughtless, and when she begins to notice the consequence, she tries to treat it casually, as if it were a case of measles, except that she assumes she should get an abortion and make it snappy.
But her feelings intrude, and she decides to have the baby and give it up for adoption if she can find the perfect couple.
Juno’s journey is the subject of the rest of the film, and it does not play out according to her--or our—expectations. Juno has some growing up to do, and she also has to look at the boy who fathered the child in a different light. (He’s played with a winsome surface blandness by Michael Cera.). Juno’s intelligent and supportive parents are portrayed sympathetically by Allison Janney and J. K. Simmons, and Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner have important roles, as you will see if you take my advice and don’t miss this December surprise.
As well as being a breakthrough film for the talented Ms. Page, it should be a breakthrough for director Jason Reitman, who handles his chores with flair and has the good sense to capture the tone of Cody’s screenplay. It is also a big breakthrough for Cody, a former stripper who, having turned writer, now bares the soul of her endearing character Juno. A Fox Searchlight Pictures release.
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