Juno is not worth seeing - mind the praise

Rating: 2/10 (22 December 2007)

Juno represents the mechanism of Hollywood and its ability to promote a film into popularity that is just a touch above average, with flaws and problems enough to have relegated it to obscurity in any other case.
To start: None of the dialog is believable. This should immediately rub people the wrong way, but it hasn't, which is all the more worrisome. These characters need heart and need to speak from it, but don't have it and weren't granted it by the writer.
As a result, the actors try to compensate for it all over the place. Sometimes this unintentionally works, most of the time, its like watching a brilliant train wreck: unintended and horrible yet fascinating for the things that weren't intended rather than the things that were. If these were the grounds on which Juno received praise, this would be acceptable. But they aren't. People are praising the things that crash and burn immediately.
If there is a "tension" in the performances of Ellen Page and the supporting characters, it is created not intentionally by the writing or direction, but unintentionally, by their natural inclination as actors and people to infuse these cold prose with some kind of life.
Rhythmic prosaic dialog should never be used again unless at a musical concert, free-form poetry convention or on a Broadway stage.
Because everyone speaks in the same "smart" way, its clear that all the characters are written by exactly the same person. Cody never empathizes with anyone, let alone demonstrates an understanding of a single human.
If you're wondering what happened to "feel-good" comedy, the label of which has become more of a curse than a description, Juno is it. This is the new "feel-good," which was always a qualifier that just meant, "feel good" about this, even if there's nothing here to feel good about. With every over-extended sentence and quirky, poppy jab, the "feel-good" chips stack, until reaching tower of babel-like proportions. Hopefully, with a nudge from a smarter public, they'll topple eventually.
Snappy comments and overripe dialog don't necessarily make the film witty. If anything, I would argue they create the inverse effect - measured by the degree to which they over- extend their wit, wear out their welcome and become totems of a writer who repeats sub- textually in every line, "look at me," without saying much else.