Juno (and I hereby swear that the phrase “whip-smart” will not appear anywhere in this review)
January 4th, 2008
Drop everything and go see the film Porpoise is calling the “best movie of 2007”! (And your faithful Otter calls it “the second best movie of 2007,” after , which really came out in 2006, but which I’m counting as a 2007 release because if Roger Ebert does, then why can’t I?)
Yes, is one of this year’s unexpected-pregnancy movies—along with , , and —but for some reason, it has drawn less criticism from the press for the main character’s decision not to have an abortion, even though Juno MacGuff’s reasons are as vague as any of the other protagonists’. This seems strange, considering that Juno is sixteen, whereas the other women (at least in Knocked Up and Waitress) are relatively responsible women in their twenties. Maybe—and I’m being optimistic here—it’s because people really recognize that Juno is a better movie—funnier, more complex, better constructed, and without the undercurrent of misogyny that runs through Knocked Up.
First of all, it’s got great acting. Ellen Page is entirely believable as a wordy, precocious teenager who finds herself pregnant after impulsive sex with her best friend. Some have criticized her lines as too smart, and there were a couple that did seem a little forced—but because these were near the beginning of the film, I think that effect may actually be intentional. The movie doesn’t coast on cuteness at the expense of Juno’s real character growth; the smart lines don’t drop off as she discovers that she’s not as mature as she thinks she is, but they gain nuances.
Michael Cera does his sweet-awkward routine from impeccably here as Paulie Bleeker, the baby’s unwitting father. J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney are fabulous as Juno’s working-class dad and stepmom. The biggest surprise for me, however, was how good Jennifer Garner was as the prospective adoptive mother to Juno’s incubating baby. A perfectionist yuppie who believes she was “born to be a mother,” her character Vanessa reminded me of several people I have known and disliked. But the movie doesn’t leave her the way we meet her, and it doesn’t leave us with the same attitude either. Someone please give Garner a Best Supporting Actress nomination: she deserves it for making me consider charity towards people who typically annoy me.
Jason Reitman (son of Ivan Reitman of fame) may become one of my favorite comedy directors. His last film, , made the cynical me delighted, while Juno made friends with both my cynical and my sappy sides by being neither cynical nor sappy. The new It Screenwriter of the year, Diablo Cody, has succeeded in making a quirky indie script that isn’t preoccupied with its own quirkiness. It actually has a plot, and it goes somewhere, and characters change along the way.
The folky songs that play during much of the movie are more noticeable than most movie soundtracks, but not in a distracting way. Juno herself is very opinionated about music, and though these songs probably wouldn’t be in line with her taste, the unified style announces that they are someone’s idiosyncratic music preferences, and so it works tonally. Most of the songs are by Kimya Dawson, though there are a couple of contributions by Belle and Sebastian (the Scottish band named after the dearly departed Nickelodeon show of my youth). Make sure you stick around through the credits to hear the extremely odd “I am a vampire, I am a vampire, and I have lost my mouth again.” I promise you’ll be singing it for days. And then you’ll so you can learn all the words. At least that’s what Porpoise and I did.
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3 Comments Add your own
1. | January 10th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I loved this movie — and not just because I live in St. Cloud (where the yuppie couple in the movie live.)
My picks for awards are Atonement for best picture, Cate Blanchett to win two awards for best actor and for best actress (in the Bob Dylan movie, I’m Not There), and finally for Junot to win best screenplay.
Why Atonment for best picture over Junot? I love Junot, but the way Atonement brings together sound, image, content, and context is stunning, and if that weren’t enough, it gives you layers of meaning over meaning.
As for your question about why Junot doesn’t get criticized for its possible pro-life politics as Knocked Up did (and I haven’t yet seen Waitress which is always checked out of the university’s library when I go), well, I have a few ideas about that. Big surprise.
First, Junot is at least presented with, and seriously considers, her options. At first, having an abortion seems the obvious choice, and the movie even mentions the names of not one, but two clinics, but she freaks out… why? Yes, that’s a good question, but, as the movie reminds us several times, Junot’s responses to situations are NOT always the reasonable ones. The real question is why she went to the clinic alone instead of with her friend. If her friend were there, then it would have gone down differently, right? However, in contrast, Knocked Up can’t even say the word abortion. Smashsmortion is the funniest line in the film — true — but only because it reveals how ideologically right-wing Hollywood is. In contrast to Junot, Alison has one short conversation with her really uncool mother, who then oddly disappears from the story.
Second, Junot has friends and family with whom she discusses all these things. In contrast, in Knocked Up, the audience is expected to believe the unbelievable scenario that this beautiful, cool woman apparently has no friends. And such a scenario is, by the way, the ultimate geek/looser-boy fantasy — a gorgeous, intelligent woman with no friends, because you know, if she had friends, they would quickly convince her to dump geek/looser-boy.
Third, the brilliant reversal at the end of the film that you mentioned. It seems like Junot is going to fall for the cool-guitar-playing-indie-rock fella, but NO, she instead opts for solidarity with Jennifer Garner (and this is why Garner is perfect for the role, because we should all be in solidarity w/ Elektra.) At the beginning of the film, we like the seemingly cool husband, not the seemingly bourgeois wife, but the movie doesn’t give in to this facade of coolness. We are tempted by it, like Jesus in the desert of the real, but the movie pierces that illusion. Ka-pow! (And this hurt me, really, because I used to want to be an indie-rock star myself… and desired the fantasy.)
In addition, what Junot gives us at the end is a single mother, whereas in Knocked Up, the movie suggests that the only option is a traditional family — as if the man has to be there and take charge (as Ben suddenly does in the final hospital scene, banishing other women from the room.) And so, Knocked Up is really a movie about a looser-guy learning how to be a macho-take-charge-guy, and not a movie about the hard choices a woman faces. And in that sense, it is a devious, devilish film, pretending to be one thing, but really doing something else. And furthermore, unlike Knocked Up, in Junot we actually see that Garner has friends. That scene in the Mall of America was major.
In other words, Junot is not predictable, it’s complex, it offers many points of view, it’s irony constantly throws all points of view into question… and yes, in that sense, it’s dialogic, dialectical, and deconstructs itself. In contrast, Knocked up is predictable, simple, and ultimately, monologic. You’re right that Junot is not “realistic” in the way that she is improbably witty… but thank god for that. Realism sucks anyway.
2. theottery | January 12th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I still need to see Atonement–IF IT EVER COMES TO THIS TOWN!!!
I like your point about the Katherine Heigl character’s lack of friends in Knocked Up–a major problem.
I’m less confident about your characterization of Hollywood as right-wing. Hollywood is just whatever happens to be safe and comfortable at the moment, whether that’s “right” or “left.”
3. theottery | January 17th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Also, don’t bother to see Waitress. We just got it via Netflix, and it’s terrible. Hairspray and 300 now have some competition for Worst Movie of the Year. Blech. I’ll have to write more about it once the awful saccharineness stops making my tummy hurt.
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