Not to miss...

Rating: 9/10 (15 February 2008)

To begin with, I want to put things on the table with the comparisons. Because this decade, we've experienced cases like "Juno"; films that grow with time and suddenly are Best Picture contenders for the Academy Awards. Well, "Juno" is better than "Little Miss Sunshine" and much better than "Sideways"; it surpasses the latter one on comedic and dramatic levels and, although it doesn't have 'Sunshine's' dramatic power, it features a more prominent collection of scenes and it has a script that's impossible to beat.
I don't want to underestimate director Jason Reitman's delicate and inspiring job, but you can't deny there's something about Diablo Cody's first work that lies beyond explanation. If this writing seems more formal than usual, it's because Cody wrote the main character's lines with a noticeable level of superiority that is at the same time contradictory. Because Juno (Ellen Page) appears to know it all with the level of vocabulary I'm talking about, however when she gets pregnant she doesn't know what to do.
And that's not all. Sixteen-year-old girls call their friends 'dude'-or at least Juno is one of them-and she has her fair share of code words that even the wisest teenager in the room may have trouble understanding; not to mention the fact that she listens to really heavy rock music and she dresses almost like guy. Yes, she's a freak, but not with the glasses and the weird dresses she describes in one of the film's many funny scenes (Cody's wonderful script includes a non-traditional form of narration by Juno that works perfectly); she's very pretty.
When she discusses the reason of her pregnancy with her best friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby), she mentions who the father is and makes obvious that she feels something for him. If you know comedy and romance, you will expect a certain number of exact, by heart phrases that the best friend would use in that moment. She uses none of them, and it's beautiful. So when we 'meet' the father in another great scene, we fully understand that Juno is 'special'.
Special as a couple; Vanessa and Mark Loring (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman in two fantastically unexpected portrayals) think she is, when they meet her because she wants to 'give' them her baby. That scene, how Juno constantly refers to the baby as "the thing"; how she ends up playing the guitar with Mark; the rest of the scenes she shares with him in which, among other things, she tells him he's a big 'sellout'; and my favorite moment of the film are pieces of a well-rounded, multidimensional character we are not used to see in a comedy.
And Ellen Page? She hands in a masterclass; a bliss of understanding of character and of sheer honesty, a better performance than Julie Christie's in "Away From Her". She has that light; the light of a true talent; the light I saw when I first watched Winona Ryder in "Reality Bites" and made me want to watch all of her films (I have almost completed the task). And of course Page also has that look; the look that says "this is no game". When it comes to performance, this movie is hers and nobody else's.
And I haven't even mentioned the scene where she gives his father and stepmother (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney), and how they react and the advices they give here in that moment and in so many others; or the multiple film references in Cody's script and the fact that it has clearly remained untouched. I really want to detail many scenes, but instead I'll just tell you which one's my favorite (there's plenty to choose), so you can pay attention: the moment near the end where one character's running and Juno walks to himThat moment, that scene.
It has been said, but the unchangeable truth is Reitman and Cody do something many movies try unsuccessfully these days: aim directly at the heartThey don't miss. I hope I said all I had to say.