A very mixed bag

Rating: 6/10 (15 May 2008)

Juno MacGuff (Ellen Paige) is a quirky, motor-mouthed, vulgar and stuck-up 16 year old girl living in the middle of nowhere, Minnesota with her equally quirky stepparents (JK Simmons and Allison Janney). Her life changes drastically when she gets knocked up by her friend, track star Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). Rejecting abortion as an option, Juno decides to allow the baby to come to terms - deciding to give the baby to Mark (Jason Bateman) and Vanessa (Jennifer Garner), a childless couple who desperately want a baby. As Juno comes to term, she realizes the depth of her feelings for Paulie, but also discovers Mark and Vanessa may not be as happy as they seem - forcing Juno to wonder whether she can possibly have a happy relationship.
Juno announces the kind of movie it is right off the bat. A teenage girl drinking a quart of Sunny D walking down the street turning to animation and moody theme music? After that, you can't really make a mistake about the kind of film you're going to see. This isn't really my kind of movie, in spite of recommendations by friends and critics. It's an awkward cross between a snappy indie film and a typically vulgar teen flick. It succeeds in that it occasionally makes a good point and features some well-drawn characters. It fails in being a comedy or having a sympathetic protagonist, which prevent me from liking it any more than I do.
I have a decidedly weird and varied sense of humor. I like Monty Python and SpongeBob SquarePants as much as His Girl Friday or Sports Night. Hell, I find ESPN's Around the Horn side-splittingly hilarious. Witty barbs, pratfalls and gross-out humor are equally appealing to me, if done right.
Juno, however, falls under the category I despise. Diablo Cody's idea of wit is simply smart-ass, vulgar quips spouted off at a machine-gun rate. I did not laugh out loud once through the whole movie - a few smiles, and maybe a snicker or two, but that's it. Particularly repulsive were Juno's monologues about "pork swords" and the like, the hipster grocer, sight gags about condoms, underwear and Tic-Tacs. Wonderfully well-developed wit, that is. Juno's constant stream of faux-hipster slang ("Honest to blog!") is equally cringe-inducing. Okay, some people on planet Earth talk like that. But on what planet does everyone? And on what planet does such a script win an Oscar?
And then there's Juno. It was certainly an interesting choice to make Juno an unlikeable character, but it's not really a successful one. Ellen Page is extremely unlikeable as she spouts Cody's pathetic excuse for humor. She comes across as a mean-spirited, smug, and superior. Her attitude towards the whole situation is believable, but her position on the baby is troubled; she doesn't want to abort it, but she has no remorse over giving it up for adoption? She doesn't develop the slightest feelings for the baby? It's hard to really care for such an individual. I do know people like Juno in real life, but I don't care for them, either. Only towards the end does Juno develop into a sympathetic character, which is fine, but hardly compensates for the first 70-plus minutes of smartass-itude.
And yet, the film has some strong redeeming qualities. The adult characters are surprisingly well-developed and overshadow their teen counterparts. Jennifer Garner is given a really sensitive and subtle character to work with, and she shines. Jason Bateman is equally good as her troubled husband; his relationship with Juno is very well-developed and adds an intriguing sideline to the main story. JK Simmons has some fine moments, and it's impossible not to find humor in an Allison Janney performance. Michael Cera as Bleeker is likable without having any real depth.
The movie succeeds in the last half-hour or so, when it shifts gears from being a faux-hip comedy to a fairly serious exploration of the subject matter. Juno's attempts to discover whether its possible to have a long-term relationship shows a level of maturity the rest of the film sorely lacks; her key scene with her dad and her final scenes with Bleeker are touching and believable. The movie's resolution somewhat bothers me; as mentioned above, can we really believe that Juno would have ZERO feelings about the baby? But the sweet ending does a decent job of glossing over this point, so perhaps complaining about it is pedantic.
Juno is a decidedly mixed bag. The target audience undoubtedly loves it, but I don't. Give me Aaron Sorkin or even Ten Things I Hate About You over the turgid excuse for comedy, but I can hang onto the character development and story ideas. But to my dying day, I'll never understand how this film was worthy of a Best Picture nomination.
6/10