Viewed: In theatreRelease Date: December 25, 2007
writer: Diablo Cody
director: Jason Reitman
I wasn't aware that there was backlash against Juno until today, but then there's a tendency in today's society for people to rebel against the praise if only to be the naysayer. With films like Juno, which are smaller budget and less likely to be received by a mass audience, reviewers and critics highlight them with glowingly positive reviews. Juno debuted at the Toronto International Film Fest and its praises were sung immediately, in the hope that a) it would get strong distribution and b) it would reach or intrigue a wider audience. When the film hit theatres last Christmas, the inevitable happened: rebellion. People hating the movie, if only because it's so universally loved.
My good friend Toast and I have been at bitter odds over cinema (and other pop culture) for the past few years. Whenever I love something, he invariably dislikes it (9 times out of 10). It's not really a case of spiting me, but instead he (for some reason) has added considerable weight to my opinion on such things, and when he finds his enjoyment lacking compared to mine and his expectations dashed, well, it seems to diminish much of the enjoyment he gets out of the film.
But here's the thing, when you see a film without hearing much about it, there's a sense of discovery, a sense of unveiling as you watch it unfold before you. So much enjoyment of entertainment comes from this that when someone injects their own enthusiasm, their own sense of appreciation into it, well, suddenly you no longer have so much to discover, and it more becomes a comparative experience. "So and so really liked this, but why, the effects aren't great and the dialogue is too punchy and I just can't get behind this soundtrack"). When you have someone else's voice in your head as you watch (that's a figurative voice which we attach even to writers/reviewers/critics whose faces we've never seen and voices never heard), it does impact how you receive a work of entertainment.
This is a large part of what's happened with Juno: a lot of people telling other people how great it is, and what's great about it, and then some of those people armed with too much knowledge about the film and therefore just too far removed from the film to invest in it when they actually see it.
Something else my friend Toast has said before (not about Juno, but about the TV show Pushing Daisies) that resonates with the film, and that's "I feel like this is something I'm meant to like", that is, something that's calculated perhaps too much to be different/quirky/weird and hit the demographic that searches and embraces such things. Juno I don't think has focussed its sights as tightly as, say, Garden State, but I think it does fit in with the Joss Whedon-esque, self-aware, metatextual sensibilities that the hipster generation has so calculatedly made mainstream.
Juno doesn't drip with meaning, and it doesn't always angle itself askew for the sake of being clever. It does work hard to achieve an aesthetic for its characters, young and old, but eventually it establishes those characters as something more than just facades, well-orchestrated clusters of witty sound bites amongst acutely detailed living spaces. Juno is a tough girl with a prickly exterior, straddling the line between a naive existence and overbearing intelligence. It would appear she's of the so-smart-she-finds-the-average-teenage-life-boring persuasion, so she does things (like moving an entire discarded furniture suite onto Paulie Bleeker's lawn to greet him in the morning) for a moment or two of amusement.
Juno's father and stepmother let her run free, giving her trust, backed with a healthy dose of sarcasm. When Juno winds up pregnant as a result of a calculated moment of boredom-killing with Bleeker, her father's response isn't anger, but disappointment, backed with sarcasm (which seems to be the family's way of comforting one another) and acceptance. The dialogue between Mac and Bren after Juno has left the room is like the cutting room floor footage after the cameras have stopped rolling and actors have dropped their facade (figuratively speaking)... it's two people dropping their parental roles and figuring out what to do next.
Juno tries to find every answer to the predicament herself, enlisting her friend Leah as a sounding board more than anything, including pursuing abortion. There's no message backing her decision to carry through the pregnancy and put the baby up for adoption, except to say that it's her own personal choice. There's no religious connotation backing it, nor any moral or feminist push to it. There's a sense of her own anxiety, but the decision she makes seems to rest well with her. She finds Vanessa and Mark, and upscale couple searching to adopt a baby through legal means, in a classifieds booklet. Juno checks the couple out with her father and decides they are a good fit. That Mark is into guitars and alternative music seems to also sit well with her.
As the story progresses, Juno finds every relationship to be as uncomfortable as her pregnancy. Bleeker, whom she admits to loving to Leah but keeps at arm's length, gets frustrated with her games and his inability to express himself. Bren steps into the role of motherly support, even though it's obvious that her relationship with Juno has never been in that capacity. Juno, again, tries to push her away, but Bren has a bit more fortitude than Bleeker. With Vanessa and Mark, Juno finds herself intrigued, envious, suspicious and attracted to them and their lives, Mark in particular. But something uncomfortable is going on in that household which threatens Juno's idealized life for the child.
For all the help that she's offered and given, Juno truly does most of it herself. She proves herself a bastion of feminine independence, making all her own major decisions and correcting her own mistakes. The lesson she learns, though, is she doesn't always have to be in control, and that there are people willing to support her if she were to fall. Juno is a tough nut to crack, but it's easy to like her from a distance, and as an onlooker, she's fascinating (and entertaining) to watch.
Ellen Page is like a young Sigourney Weaver, already a strong actress in action, drama and thriller roles, and now a witty powerhouse with impeccable comedic timing. Though a few minutes early on, with an exchange between Page and the Office's Rainn Wilson as a convenience store clerk (which she obviously frequents often) the dialogue proves a tad too punchy, it eventually settles down, whereby the characters speak in their own voices, with the MacGuff family obviously well versed in sarcasm and back-talk. J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney embody their roles completely, Simmons playing the concerned father without breaking his glib character, and Janney brilliantly juggling the step-mother role through her mind while she reacts to Juno's little pushes. Michael Cera has perfected the imperfect line read, and while his two major roles since Arrested Development (this one and his co-lead in Superbad) still have the nebbish undercurrent, they've also allowed him moments of strength or, here, a stoic demeanor.
The music throughout the film is a medley of the obvious hipster friendly classics, with a lot of post-punk, indie 90's or 70's-era tunes, which is a little disappointing given how discovered most of the songs are. There's little amongst these that someone who hasn't been paying attention wouldn't know (I mean, Sonic Youth's cover of "Superstar"?), but then my experiences aren't always someone else's. What helps (in my eyes at least) is the affecting, lo-fi twee of the Moldy Peaches' Kimya Dawson. Her awkward, cracking timbre paired with basic acoustics, whimsical lyrics and catchy melodies is in fitting with the tone and personalities of the film, and the final front-steps jam session between Page and Cera is warm, beautiful and humourous.
Not quite a perfect film, but exceptionally charming and invariably enjoyable. With a script that could have proved punchier with less skilled acting, director Jason Reitman keeps a pace not too dissimilar from contemporaries like Wes Anderson, rarely letting the cleverness of the characters or their humour overtake the moment. Sweet, fun, and restrained.
Rating: 4.5/5