Spitfire "Juno" kicks "Knocked Up" to the curb

Rating: 7/10 (13 January 2008)

2007 has been the year of the overrated pregnancy comedy, with last summer's "Knocked Up" and now "Juno" as recipients of hype and high box office. Unlike most of the critical populace (save for a few clear-headed writers like Maryann Johanson), I found little to like in Judd Apatow's film, and was particularly turned off by its lack of realismin spite of the critical accolades it received, I found its plot machinations (and jokes) to be the stuff of stale-sitcom artificiality and Hollywood Happy Endings. I approached "Juno" similar to how I approached "Knocked"it's getting a lot of press, so I'll see it.
And while "Juno" has its share of problems (which I'll get to later), it knocks "Knocked Up" to the curb. The story follows 16-year old Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page"Hard Candy"), who finds herself impregnated by soft-spoken track star Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera"Superbad"), and the ensuing ups and downs that come from the appraisal of her classmates, her parents, and even the couple who volunteers to adopt the yet-unborn. Whereas "Knocked" carefully blew off issues like abortion (hit the punchline, cut to next scene!), it is the first thing Juno discusses with her best friendand while there is an undercurrent of humor to her visit to the clinic (where a classmate holds a solitary protest outside), this setpiece never ventures into cartoon terrain.
While Juno herself comes off as the lost sister of the "Ghost World" girls, and her character and dialog can be incredibly caustic for caustic's sake (first-time screenwriter Diablo Cody's hipper-than-thou barbs are frequently over-the-top and almost trivialize the more controlled elements of the story), there is a surprising relativity in Page's performance that eventually transcends what, at first, seems like an immature, one-note teenage character.
The same can be said for the ensemble cast surrounding her. Cody's script and Jason Reitman's direction cleverly works the characters from straightforward caricatures (the perpetually-perky adoptive mother; the dog-obsessed stepmother; the cheerleader friend; the dim jock) to fleshed-out, three-dimensional people whom we genuinely care about. For its first hour, "Juno" made me smile a lot, even laugh a few times, but only in its last third did it take on a level of complexity that gave way to a humbling maturity in Juno and those around her. I honestly did not expect the dramatic elements to kick in with such wrenching force, but they do, and they are seen through to their most logical conclusion. By the end, "Juno" had touched me in a manner that made "Knocked Up" seem all the more clueless.
While I'll grant that "Juno" earns its laughs and tears honestly, it can also be pretentious in spots. Reitman, whose "Thank You for Smoking" struck me as a slick yet show-offy ensemble comedy, frequently seems to be cribbing Wes Anderson's stark aesthetic and twist-of-fate life lessons. Additionally, the soundtrack of indie songs with the minimalist guitar and faux-poetic lyrics is overincorporatedwhile I understand that it's symbolizing the mentality of a teenage girl who's a bit pretentious herself, too many scenes are punctuated by it, to the point of redundancy. And even the animated opening-credits sequence seems to be invoking the Daniel Clowes-created "Ghost World" with another nod toward the distinctive portraits that appear in Anderson's films. On a plot level, the relationship between Juno and Paulie is developed in brief snippets throughout the film, but the plot turns in the last act don't jell quite as well as they shouldwhile there's a satisfactory (and perfectly believable) closure for the characters, it seems to be missing a few steps.
But "Juno" is ultimately a modestly endearing film despite its aesthetic missteps, using a deceptively simple plot device to tell a tale that cuts to the heart of a teenager's emotional core, and presents the leap into maturity as something as painful as labor, albeit with its rewards in the end. Not one of 2007's best films, but easily the best pregnancy comedy (of errors).
6.5 out of 10