Juno.
It may only be February, but I don’t expect to see a better film than Juno the rest of this year. If you object to some mild spoilers, it’s probably best you stop reading now and go and play a game instead.
Juno of the title is a sixteen year-old girl who decides it’s time to experiment sexually and enlists her friend Paulie to join her — then she ends up pregnant.
It’s a familiar enough premise, but where the movie then goes is unlike anything I’ve seen recently. What marks it out for me, and what makes it so special, is the sheer believability of it all.
Underneath the so-hip-it-hurts witty banter (Juno talks like every teenager wishes they did — she talks like I wish I did), the characters and their relationships, their confusion and fear and their developing reactions to the situation all ring true.
The only real sticking point is that dialogue, which initially feels a little contrived and a little too self-aware, but within ten minutes my brain had found its rhythm and took it for what it was, a little bit of humourous caricature that emphasises depth and honesty rather than hiding it. Ellen Page layers it over her character while still showing us the confusion and insecurity that Juno doesn’t quite want to admit to.
Michael Cera is half of the duo that made Superbad so engaging despite its ick, and he does the same here as the father of the child, fumbling his way through the sweet little love story. He also has the line that captures perfectly what it’s like to be a teenager (at least the way I remember it): Juno says, “‘Cause you’re, like, the coolest person I’ve ever met, and you don’t even have to try, you know…” Paulie’s reply, “I try really hard, actually.”
Other highlights include, unlike in most teen comedies, that Juno’s parents are actually very likable, doing their best to look out for her while they themselves haven’t a clue what to do, and their reaction to her news also seems spot on. The soundtrack sent me straight to iTunes, and the whole look of the film was… I’m sorry that I’m having to stop myself using a word like ‘enchanting’.
The trick the film pulls is that by the end you’ve come to really care about the characters, and when Juno gives birth and is giving her baby up to be adopted, and her father sits with her without saying much, you’re just about ready to cry with her.
Teenage pregnancy is a headline-grabber of an issue, but what Juno does, with its little glimpses of grace, is remind that completely apart from sermons and glib ’solutions’, real people have to get on dealing with real life.
February 13th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
So the jibes at non-white people (especially Chinese adoptees) is funny and OK?
Hmm… Chinese adoptees have told me that they just cringe at this with open mouths.
Also, making it appear that it is OK that Juno does not have an independent lawyer is not OK - it is in fact illegal in many places including the many of the States. That is what they did to mothers years ago to get their children.
This films glamorises adoption in ways that are completely unrealistic.
Life does not just “get on” after adoption - it just doesn’t.
My reunited son and I will not be seeing this - we can barely stomach the trailers
(especially the particularly insensitive one about Chinese adoptees).
February 13th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Cat,
Thank you for taking the time to comment.
It’s not my desire to become an apologist for any film, but your remarks raise some questions that I think are worth exploring.
I’ve only been to see Juno once, so I can’t claim detailed recollection of every word and action, but I’ll work with what I can recall.
I don’t recall any “jibes” at “Chinese adoptees”. In the relevant line in the film race or ethnicity has nothing to do with the humour, nor do the children being adopted. Rather I’d read it more as social commentary on a society with a history of unusual approaches to population control. Thinking generally, how do we deal with race in comedy? Where comedy features characters or references to anyone who is “non-white”, is it inherently racist? I find it hard to accept that it does. Is there any room for commentary on a society that isn’t immediately our own? There is a long history of humour (however blunt or flippant) drawing attention to complex issues many would otherwise miss.
That said, this is something I’m definitely open to discussion on — as a middle-class, WASP male I accept that there are nuances I will never appreciate. Nosing around some of the debate online confirms that it cuts deeper for many than it did for me.
I do understand your comment on Juno’s lack of independent legal advice, although the film certainly doesn’t make a value judgement on this. If anything, it emphasises the contrast with the hopeful couple’s forceful lawyer, although if the filmmakers had wanted to, I guess they could have explicitly made something of it without harming the narrative.
I didn’t think that the film “glamorises” anything, and it certainly doesn’t give any hint that life will just “‘get on’ after adoption”. How could it, when by the time Juno’s baby is born there is very little screen time left? There is a quick reference to a couple of months later, which in itself makes no statement either way, and that’s it.
I felt that the strength of Juno was in its portrayal of the the central characters’ relationships, and especially in the confusion and fear, mingled with the joy of pregnancy, that Juno was trying to deal with at an age when she felt completely unable so to do. The aftermath of adoption is another story which this film makes no attempt to tell, because that isn’t what it’s about.
I’m sorry that you feel unable to watch the film and discover for yourself that there is more (and less) to it than you have been given to understand. Being art and/or entertainment, no film (book, play, comic, poem, …) can deal perfectly or completely with the pain and the stress of real life issues. All it can do is paint some very broad strokes and ask us some questions about ourselves and how we see the world.
Having said all this, I have no direct personal experience of the issues surrounding adoption, so I hope I haven’t spoken out of turn. If I have, I ask that you would forgive my ignorance.