Great film, great message, but with a serious flaw

Rating: 7/10 (21 May 2008)

This movie was excellent. I really liked the Juno character, and Bleeker as well was pretty cool. I enjoyed watching Juno's dad, who was the same guy who played the newspaper guy in Spider-Man. It was interesting to see him in such a different role.
I really liked the pro-life message of the movie, though I strongly disagree with Juno's and Bleeker's actions leading up to that situation in the first place. So I'm glad to see they made the best of a bad situation, teaching viewers a good message.
What I did not like about the film is the character played by Jason Bateman. This character underlines a serious problem in Hollywood, which is the glamorization of divorce and the trivialization of the sanctity of marriage. He and his wife were dreaming of having a kid, and Juno's situation was an answer to their prayers. Then, on the eve of the adoption, Jason Bateman turns into a chicken and decides to leave his wife, delivering her a crushing blow. He the proceeds to divorce her and leave her all alone to face this adoption that they were originally reaming about together. I wanted to punch that smug look off his face when they were sitting at the dining room table talking about it. In my opinion, he is a coward, and he is not a man. His heart is black to be able to do something like that. Marriage is a sacred, lifelong commitment, not a high school dating relationship that can just be turned off when you get scared of the future. And for that, I knock this movie down a few points. But thumbs up for everything else about it. Highly entertaining, funny, good pace, amusing conversation, and likable characters. The music and music discussion was enjoyable as well.
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