Good, but No Credibility

Rating: 6/10 (28 December 2007)

I was somewhat disappointed by "Juno". Going into it, I expected a deep study of the emotional/psychological storm women, especially 16 year old girls, go through when becoming unexpectedly pregnant. Instead, I got an ABC After School Special, ramped up a bit with some edginess. Jason Reitman's direction is good. The problem is the screenplay by first time screen writer Diablo Cody.
Obviously Cody has seen both "Ghost World" (2000) and "Waitress" (2007) because Juno's character is Enid from the former and her situation is Jenna's from the latter. She is the 17 year old Enid pregnant with Jenna's 25 year old maturity level. What is missing is the emotional investment in Juno's character, largely because of a lack of credibility that Cody did not bring over from those two films.
While watching "Juno", at times I felt Aaron Sorkin wrote the dialogue. Very slick, everyone knew exactly the right thing to say at the right time. Juno herself knows more cultural reference metaphors and similes than Dennis Miller. She is quick of mind and tongue, almost too quick to sound like a credible 16 year old. No teen awkwardness, no rough edges, except those necessary to progress the story. Juno sounds like a 50 year old Madison Avenue advertising executive and just as world weary.
Cody does try to make Juno and her friends sound like 16 year olds by having them say "dude" and "totally" over and over ad naseum. Now admittedly at 44 years old I am an "old man" and maybe out of touch with the speech patterns of todays high school youth, but I know my 16 year old never uses the words "dude" and "totally", implying there is a lack of environmental influence at school. My 23 year old and 21 year old, at that age back in 2000 and 2002, also never used those slang words. And I maybe heard one of their friends say "dude" one time.
Cody also neglected to explore certain plot elements that would have added more credibility to the film. Where is Bleeker's father? Why does her mother dislike Juno? Why does she not know about the pregnancy even though Juno's parents and the whole school knows who the father is? Where is the scene between Bleeker and his mother discussing the situation? If that was a creative choice to edit out by Reitman and Cody, why dosen't Bleeker at least mention to Juno how his mother feels about the whole thing?
The strength of the screenplay comes with the bittersweet emotional longing Juno carries like a heavy backpack for a mother we never see who abandoned her as a six year old. It is clear from the start all her actions regarding the baby she is carrying are influenced by this event. It was this character examination that made "Juno" somewhat involving in spite of it's flaws and interesting to see through to the end. But still, "Juno" is not a film I could sit through a second time, dude. Totally.