In retrospect, it was critical I saw this flick a month before it's release. It was before the hooplah and the over-love and backlash, and I didn't know much about it. All I had heard was that Fox Searchlight was marketing it as "this year's Little Miss Sunshine!" Guhhhh. Nothing could lower my expectations more given my unfathomable utter hate for that celluloid barf bag (I dare not even give it the dignity of "movie")
The comparisons aren't totally unfounded. To put it simply, Juno contains everything I pretty much hate about most independent comedies... but there was a catch: I loved it anyway. Who knows, maybe I loved it not in spite of these qualities but because it was the first time these qualities had a kind of real life-resonance. It's true, people in high school liked to be weird. I was the idiot who wore dumb colored glasses. So yes people, Juno has a hamburger phone and carries around a pipe. And usually these are precisely the kinds of details that often drive me nuts cause the filmmaker is ostentatiously trying to cram them in for the audience's perceived enjoyment (or they're trying to copy Wes Anderson and doing a shitty job). Luckily, the quirky details are just there for Juno herself. It's a movie about a girl who tries to be quirky in her life and suddenly has to deal with a crushing reality. It's that kind of understanding that makes a colossal difference.
Jason Reitman deserves most of the credit. Sure Ellen Page could nail the lines with veracity, but Reitman actually captures an even tone of this sucker and it could have been all over the proverbial map. I recently went back and read the screenplay and let's just say, it didn't sound 1/40 as good on the page as it did in the movie. Bravo to the next of kin. He seems to get it and this is a huge step forward for him after his satirical debut. Much like that other pregnancy comedy I loved this year, Juno's got a kind of honesty underneath the bubble gum pop tongue twister speak (my friend Puddy put it best "just so you're aware, a film with the line "Honest to blog?" just won an Oscar for writing) there's a carefully textured emotion and even psychology. That's right, Juno's actually got some character study going on. Sure, it's nothing compared to the magnum opus of Daniel Plainview (what could be?) but it's there. And that matters bunches.
Recommendation: High. So to everyone of the blacklashers out there why don't you ditch the tude dude, and get with the macgruff grammar train. Remember, it's okay to like stuff.
And here's a good review by someone who's less cynical then me:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071213/REVIEWS/712130303
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