Quite a Turn from What Everybody Said it Was

Rating: 4/10 (23 December 2007)

Juno is not the feel-good movie of the season, as was stated by several reviewers, but rather a dramedy that left a bitter taste in my mouth as I left the theater. Though some reviewers commented on the realism and the witty dialog, I find both to only be partially true. As a teenager, I can assure you that the dialog is not quite a true mirror of the language of today's teenagers, but that is not what truly bugged me.It is It is the way the movie constantly switches horses in midstream. It is lost between a drama and a comedy, and there is a distinct style between the parts of the movie which are wrought as comedy, and the other parts of drama. The drama is quite different from mainstream drama, and is the only thing keeping the movie alive (I thoroughly hate Hollywood drama, and this is what kept me in the theater). However, it is the comedy which leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It is a movie at which I felt a desire to feel sorry for Juno, but in which the comedy simply destroys all of this, and shows Juno as a heartless piece of wood. No 16 year old could ever deal with a situation as serious as hers, with the indifference she does. She makes a mockery of a situation that is destined to be serious, but ends up becoming a sick joke in the eye of the beholder. Additionally, as a teenage boy, I am very insulted and disgusted at our society for laughing at a subject as serious as this. Though I am not opposed to satire, and find it very enjoyable, I simply cannot laugh at as serious a topic as this, in a movie which seems to stress the seriousness one second, and throws it off as a canned, (yet still somewhat quirky) remark the next.