It's good...but a little too precious in places

Rating: 8/10 (19 February 2008)

I feel a lot of people here, having read several pages of comments, are going a little over the top about the significance and hipness of this film. That is not to shortchange some excellent acting, most especially from the revelatory Ellen Page as the title character, from Jason Bateman as the possible adoptive father who is struggling with the never-ending male yearning to regress to age 17, Jennifer Garner giving a nuanced performance as a woman (Vanessa Loring) who really wants to be a mother but whose feelings may be driving her husband (Bateman, as Mark Loring) somewhat away from her. Garner has not received enough credit, in the rush to attribute credit for this film. She balances the most intense desire to be a mother but is having difficulty keeping the equilibrium which she has esablished with her husband. This is a tough line to straddle and Garner does it fantastically. I don't know if she has received an Oscar nomination but I don't think it would have been out-of-place for both she and Bateman, as Mr. Perpetually Arrested In Development (no pun intended) to have received them. JK Simmons offers a warm, rich performance as a supportive if somewhat baffled father (but then again, who isn't?) Juno's best friend Leah is also brought energetically to life as a somewhat hyper, smart, horny, smart-alecky teen by Olivia Thirlby. Michael Cera, I believe may have some difficulty extending his range if he does not soon do something in which he plays something other than the shy, reserved, sensitive male part. He is decent but his character's emotional palette is sometimes almost one note.
Screenwriter Diablo Cody has written a witty, whip-smart script, but at times it seemed a little too clever for its own good, attempting to out-"Fargo" "Fargo" by dwelling on the specific upper-midwestern locale and the "folksiness" of all. This is not a major criticism, but it is a criticism. My primary beef is with Alison Janney's character who at one point when she and her husband were discussing Juno's just-revealed pregnancy said something along the lines of how do we rectify this sh*tpile of a situation. The dialogue just seemed at times to strain a little too much for our approval. That said, a scene in which Janney's Bren critiqued the x-ray technician for her unsolicited opinions on the frequency with which teens get pregnant was very funny and Cody has a fantastic ear for dialogue. I just found at times it seemed a little too precious. The film really would not be a quarter of what it was without such a wonderful script.
This is a good, funny movie, but as some other commenters have noted, in addition to some reservations about the preciousness of the dialogue, I don't think Cody recognizes the transcendent changes which ALL women, regardless of how hip, undergo, when pregnant. That said, I'd see this film about 42 times before I would see the vast majority of the dregs out there which currently pass for films.