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Sixteen-year-old Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) straddles
the line between the fancies of a little girl and the concerns of an adult
woman. One moment, she’s talking on a phone shaped liked a hamburger
about complex emotions; the next, she’s moving discarded furniture to
the home of her best friend, Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), to surprise
him. Yep, she’s all over the place emotionally and mentally, yet this
intelligent teen knows she’s going to have to make some important
decisions real soon. She’s pregnant and telling her parents is the
least of her worries as she has to decide whether to keep her child, a
decision she knows deep down she’s not ready to make. The premise for Jason Reitman’s wonderful Juno sounds like that of
a modern Afterschool Special but in the hands of first-time screenwriter
Diablo Cody, it becomes so much more than a moralistic sermon. Featuring
characters as complex as the problems that face them, the film is moving
and, at the same time, a whole lot of fun. Finding an ad placed by a couple eager to adopt, Juno
sets out to meet Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer
Garner), whose pristine suburban palace does nothing but hide simmering
discontent. Vanessa’s a perfectionist, while Mark is suffering from
an extended case of Peter Pan syndrome, writing commercial ditties to pay
the bills but still longing to become a rock musician. Juno, however, sees
nothing but a comfortable, stable home that she thinks will be a haven for
her unborn child. As Juno’s due date approaches, complicated
feelings that all these characters have kept in check begin to surface.
While keeping Juno as the focus, Reitman and Cody also give ample screen
time to her father, Mac (J.K. Simmons), and stepmother Bren (Allison
Janney), as well as Paulie and the Lorings. Their juggling of all of these
stories is one of the unsung qualities of the film, which is complemented
by the fine work of the cast. Ultimately, the film rests on Page’s shoulders
and she’s more than up to the task of investing in Juno a seemingly
contradictory sense of strength, confusion, adolescence, and passion. The
naïveté she displays is heartbreaking, as we know that the
decisions she’s making will come back to haunt her. We suspect she
knows this but is taking the most expedient path to help spare the ones she
loves. Page pulls this all off with high energy and great emotion, giving
us a young woman who, though forced to grow up, retains an optimistic point
of view that will see her through in the end.
This article appears in Dec 27, 2007 – Jan 2, 2008.
