A real smart girl comedy

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2007)

Like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad, Juno is partly an offshoot of the now increasingly seminal-seeming TV series "Freaks and Geeks," with a loosely unified point of view, with certain actors recurring, and above all with Judd Apatow as presiding Master of the Revels. That this is, overall, a fortunate turn of affairs for American film comedy has never been more obvious than in the charming and revelatory new film about a teenage girl, Juno.
Juno is a sixteen-year-old in high school who gets pregnant. She's an extension of Linda Cardellini's "Freaks" character, Lindsay. She's not quite a Freak or a Geek, but she refuses to conform and she's provocative, articulate, and aware she doesn't know who she is yet. In her every burst of repartee Juno's striving to define herself, stay honest and sane, and not take any crap off anybody. The important thing is the character more than the issue, though it's the measure of the fluidity and smarts of the writing that you can't really separate the two.
Though his character Paulie is marvelously understated, Michael Cera, the tall young Canadian who's also one of the principals of Superbad, also defines the frame of reference a little differently from previous comedies. He's Juno's boyfriend--or her non-boyfriend, because that's still undecided too, and he's the father of her child. He's not a bad guy nor is he capable of making things alright. He's just a kid, like her. But he's sweet and decent. Juno tells him he behaves well and makes it look easy. But he says actually he works really hard at it.
After an icky visit to an abortion clinic and a chat with an Asian classmate picketing it, Juno and her girlfriend Lea (Olivia Thirby) decide she's going to have the baby and they find a yuppie couple seeking adoption in a local free paper. When Juno visits Vanessa and Mark Loring (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman) they're yuppies living in a McMansion, but they're sincere. Right away Juno bonds alarmingly with Mark, because he's a musician, even if he's sold out, writing for commercials.
We can't tell how this all pans out because Juno is first of all a journey with surprising bumps along the way, but aside from the very funny, very smart writing throughout by Diablo Cody (that's a lady) and the fact that Ellen Page's sharp tongue is sweetened by the fact that she's completely adorable, this movie is rounded out by alternative points of view. Juno's dad (a very strong J.K. Simmons) is wholly supporting, but she has a stepmother ("The West Wing's" Allison Janney) whose remarks are tinged with acid. Most importantly for a good while in the middle Vanessa and Mark draw the viewer's attention. How are they handling all this? What does it mean to have to adopt? What strains is their marriage under? The movie takes a good look at them before going back to Juno.
"Freaks and Geeks" ends with members of the two groups hanging out together. To begin with Lindsay was a bit of both. If she hung out with the Freaks, her younger brother Sam, the number two character, was 100% Geek. Paulie is a kind of geek: he does extremely well in school. But he's also a jock, perpetually seen in running togs or with the cross country team. The essence of the "Freaks and Geeks" point of view is that though categorizing in youth is a relentless social process, categories are essentially limiting and false.
Juno comes across as smarter and less lame than Knocked Up. It's not a fat Jewish boy's fantasy of being accepted by a cute girl. It's ending is a bit of a cop-out, but essentially what matters is the way the prevailing voice encompasses young attitudes and realities As in the Apatow comedies the message remains that it's hip and okay to be a good person. But since this is a collective kind of comedy that's been emerging, there's no one truth and some of the scenes and ideas in Juno too are lame while some others are exceptionally humorous and witty.
These new comedies are cool: they devise a loose system where it's hard to go wrong, and Juno goes particularly right. This is the real woman's version of Knocked Up: that's why the title is the name of the girl. Juno remains Junoeven "knocked up." This is the essential point. How Mark and Vanessa turn out is left hanging. The ending feels a little bit incomplete. Partly this is TV series thinking, where it's assumed there's always another episode coming along later to tie up loose ends. It's in the classic nature of comedy to embrace people and reconcile us to things. Juno like the best new American comedies provides a framework to see contemporary reality and embrace it. Director Jason Reitman, whose first film, Thank You for Smoking, was more satirical and political, has come into the fold.
When Juno's had her baby, she and Paulie go back to playing in a band together. In high school, it's a lot better when music is the most important thing, not having babies. Yes, this is "feel-good" stuff, but it's smart, even if its sitcom-casual structure has some holes in it. Maybe Apatow has peaked as a comedy impresario with this one. Word is out that he takes a dive with Walk Hard.