Teenage Pregnancy As You've Never Seen It Before

Rating: 9/10 (9 April 2012)

This is a high-quality, feel-good, teen movie that has unfortunately managed to offend some people with very firmly-held beliefs.
Really excellent performances from all the cast - especially Ellen Page as the pregnant girl - and an intelligent, funny script helped this low-budget movie to achieve considerable popularity and many awards when it was released. Seeing it for the first time five years later it still feels fresh, funny and heart-warming without being stupidly schmaltzy.
The film is idealistic rather than realistic - and almost surreal rather than gritty.
Juno, the central character, retains her quirky, irreverent and perhaps a little unnaturally mature good humour through most of the tribulations of bearing the unexpected child. She expects nothing from the endearingly ineffectual father, played by Michael Cera, and he delivers it very well. She is also ably supported by her best friend and her sympathetic and caring parents. Abortion is considered lightly and cast aside. Yuppy adoptive parents are selected and the twists and turns in the mind of the adoptive father add just enough stress to Juno's harmonious existence to make for a proper story.
So what's not to like? You'd be surprised. Quite a number of reviewers have projected their stresses about the real world onto this very fictional fiction. Why can't they lighten up?
Anyway, it seems that the main problem is that the film portrays the experience of going through with having the child as far too painless and positive for the young Juno. Apparently, she should have been portrayed as conflicted, angry, stupid, constantly in pain, nasty brutish and short. The only one of these she managed was to be short. Her naturally positive attitude largely carried her through, while some people, presumably committed pro-abortion campaigners, think that her life should have been ruined.
Then it also seems that her parents were too supportive, that she shouldn't have visited the adoptive parents unannounced, and that it was so unrealistic as to be almost incredible that she might have initiated the sex herself.
And then last, but it seems not least, is that the film was masquerading as an "Indie" film when, in reality it wasn't one.
Just enjoy the film and forget about the hang-ups! And if you actually have a young daughter that gets pregnant, this film is just about compulsory viewing to prove that the world doesn't have to be such a bad place after all.