theodacourt (Level 22)

Arts & Crafts

Juno avec le Pipe

Juno is the tale of a high school girl who gets pregnant by mistake. Its major theme is how she deals with learning that all families/relationships have their own flaws. It is directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody with its major stars being Ellen Page as Juno MacGuff (The Pregnant Lead), Michael Cera as Paulie Bleeker (The Best Friend and Father to be), Jennifer Garner as Vanessa Loring (The Adopting Mother), Jason Bateman as Mark Loring (The Adopting Father), Allison Janney as Brenda MacGuff (Juno’s Step-Mother) and J.K. Simmons as Mac MacGuff (Juno’s Father). Another fairly important role is that of Olivia Thirlby who plays Juno’s best friend, Leah.

The film starts out with a nice animated introduction which took the whole of production (8 months-ish) to make. The first act is her finding out she’s pregnant and deciding on what to do. The second act is her finding the perfect adoptive parents. The third act is her realising these people aren’t perfect. She is faced with a dilemma which she overcomes.

Juno and Leah at school

A lot of the film has to take the lead from the script. Diablo Cody writes it with such a distinct style that the rest of the film wouldn’t work in any other way than it was executed. The young actors have to act in a way to give the dialog credibility and the visual style has to match that type of youngster. When the words are so specifically chosen, the rest of the film has to match. I have to say some of it worked and some of it didn’t for me. I’m sure to the people it was aimed at it was hugely popular, and for critics it was a change from the usual.

The plot moves along at a good pace and there aren’t many scenes which don’t add to the character or story. I enjoyed the story and it did show some realistic moments about the situation Juno is in. Unfortunately as she was using this hyper-slang, she didn’t seem to portray much emotion. When I was upset as a teenager I stopped using slang and there was a direct correlation between them, but that could just be me.

Juno and Bleeker

It’s part of a genre of super-smart teenager films. I guess I should rather say it’s more about teenagers who talk like adults and remember things they weren’t alive for. The kids know so much about old films and music that it’s hard to believe that they’ve had time to study it so much in the short time since they developed their own cultural identity. This isn’t really a problem as the films are fairly rare, but the style is so unique that it will become too much very soon if it increases in popularity. It will increase in popularity I think, because they keep making money. However, having only seen Brick which is in a similar style, I would say Brick uses it better. Instead of using youth slang, it simply uses stylised sentences reminiscent of noir. The story also avoids adults for the majority so the isolated world of the teenagers feels real as a container for emotions.

The acting is pretty good throughout with Jennifer Garner coming out on top in my opinion as a woman who is desperate for a child. As the dialog tends to limit my emotional connection to the film, the best piece of emotion is from Ellen Page where she cries after learning something very bad. I was going to put a clip in but it doesn’t work without the preceding scene and that’s a major plot point. Jason Bateman has an important role and he fills it well, but it is fairly stereotypical and he isn’t asked to do much. Everyone else has smaller roles but fills them well.

Juno's Cheeseburger Phone

The soundtrack is generally pretty strong. It’s not really anything I would listen to outside of the film though. The only thing I think of is the song that plays over the credits of Up in the Air, another film directed by Jason Reitman. It’s been a few days since I watched it, but I don’t remember knowing any of the artists. There is a soundtrack that’s mostly available on Spotify if you’re interested.

The visual style of the film is pretty good, encompassing how a teenager see’s the world. A lot of the locations chosen are at school, at the mall, at the jogging track or the local store etc. which add to the feel of the film. When we reach the adoptive parents house it seems a bit weird, but the adoptive father’s room tells a good story about who he is. All the characters wear extremely similar clothes throughout to make an identity out of them which is pretty smart, but they’re not impactful except for Bleeker running outfit.

The film is pretty good all in all and I feel it will appeal to other people than me a lot more. It’s a believable story with some less than believable characters but its dialog and direction add up to a nice tone which proves a pleasant vehicle for witty humour and a feel-good factor. I’ve rated it 3.5/5.

Favourite Bit: -

This is a scene where Juno is getting a scan of the baby. Juno always calls her step-mother Barbara because they haven’t bonded hugely. They don’t dislike each other; they just don’t like each other either. Here, Barbara defends Juno showing how she still loves her as family, even if they’re not the closest.