Look a little deeper

Rating: 8/10 (1 April 2008)

Juno, directed by Jason Reitman, is a quirky independent film that made it big in the mainstream. The title character, a sixteen year old girl, discovers that she is pregnant. After considering abortion, she decides that a closed adoption is the best way to go. She goes through her pregnancy and comes to terms with facts about relationships, and grows as a person before having the baby and giving it to the adoptive parents. It is a heartfelt movie, which I enjoyed very much. It does, however, raise several questions, and opens the door to several other topics. The direction that the film took was very open. It was not condemning towards teen pregnancy, abortion, or that adoption was the better solution to this situation. It came off that this was the right solution for Juno, not for everyone else. The non-judgmental and non-preaching aspects of the film made it really enjoyable, and allowed the audience to sit back and really absorb what was happening to the characters instead of being swayed one direction or the other. It allows the audience to make their own decisions on the topics. I was able to appreciate the story, instead of getting offended at films with agendas. This was refreshingly different. The scene in which Juno goes to the abortion clinic is, in my opinion, one of the most well done in the film. She is under the impression that she can get rid of her problem as easy and as quickly as a doctor's visit. She doesn't think too deeply about it until she runs into a classmate who tells Juno that fetuses have fingernails, and who is then unable to go through with her abortion. Juno realizes that it is not as simple a decision as she thought it was. I feel that this point is an important one to make. The filmmakers are not saying that abortion is wrong, they never condemn it. But there is a message that an abortion is not an easy solution to an unwanted pregnancy, and that it should really be thought through. While I found the girl at the counter unprofessional for a clinic, I feel that the scene was a success. Not everyone is a professional in places where they should be, and some places, like Juno's view of the abortion clinic, wind up being nothing like what we thought they would be. Of course, the most talked about and most apparent issue that the film creates is about teenage sex. I've also heard that this is one of the reasons why many people don't like the film. They do not like to think that teenagers are having sex, and see this film as glorifying the act. They would rather forget that this should be an issue on everyone's minds. Juno is clearly sexually activity, as evident by her condition, and she is not ostracized by her family or friends. They support her through a hard period of her life. She does not really suffer to any noticeable degree at her pregnancy, not is never really 'punished' for it.' I've seen many reviews that criticize the film for making Juno such a smart character, but then seeming to dumb her down by having unprotected sex. Maybe these reviewers are too far removed from their high school years. Most teenagers believe that they are indestructible, that nothing will hurt them, and I see this apply to Juno's view of how she got pregnant. If anything, I think this film advocates for better sex education to show teenagers that yes, this too can happen to them. It is a reality that many people are unwilling to face. I also enjoyed how the film dealt with relationships. Not all of them were happy, and none of them were perfect. I think this is much more realistic than what Hollywood usually portrays, and allows people to have better expectations of their own relationships. I especially liked Mark and Vanessa, who appeared to have the perfect life, but were perhaps the unhappiest out of everyone. I, too, did not know that fetuses have fingernails. It's an interesting thing to think about. I also had very little knowledge of any sort of adoption process, and I enjoyed seeing the process that Juno goes through with Vanessa and Mark, and the discussion of different types of adoptions. I think most people think of orphanages when they hear adoption, so it was nice to see another view. I would recommend this film for almost anyone. It was rather amusing, and I felt it was one of the more sincere movies that I have seen recently. While it did have several faults with continuity and so forth, as a whole, it worked as a story. Not only did I leave the theater smiling, it left me thinking about the important subjects that it brings up.