I seem to have missed the part where this was supposed to be a political documentary.

Rating: 8/10 (10 September 2008)

Let's get a few procedural matters out of the way, shall we? (1) Quite aside from the bizarre (if common) view that failure to explicitly condemn/praise a point of view = condoning/rejecting it, sometimes people make choices. It's not the job of a film to - somewhat dishonestly - suggest that protagonists must consider every possible option with equal weight or make a choice in a sensible and clear-headed fashion. Neither must such a choice reflect political or moral allegiance to one side or the other; a lot of human beings, weirdly enough, do what seems good at the time or pick the least bad option. Oddly enough, quite a few pregnant teens *do* reject the option of keeping the baby out of hand in favor of abortion or adoption, and if this *were* supposed to be a political polemic, do we really want to encourage 15-year-old single mothers? (That being said, plainly Juno *did* consider the option. "I'm a kid," she said, kicking the notion to the curb.) (2) Sometimes people (and even teenagers, and even their families), react in level-headed, supportive ways in a crisis. For everyone who screeches that Juno is unrealistic because her parents don't take (too many) swings at her, physically or verbally, gosh ... parents have been known to react that way. Not everyone is a hot-headed screamer.
(3) Works of fiction are not required to (and seldom do) "handle things responsibly." Kids screw up. *People* screw up. And some brush themselves off and muddle through as best they can. I'm sure it would have satisfied the amour propre of many of the critics if Mac came after Bleeker with a shotgun, if Juno went through screaming fits, if she and Mark slept together, and if somehow Juno was grotesquely punished for her sins, but dern it all, you didn't get to write the screenplay.
(4) Kids use "dude," "like," "whatever" and all other manner of jargon all the time, and have since Ugh the Caveman complained to Ughina about how disrespectful the cave kids were. Wrap your head around the fact and move on.
I know, it's really hard. You all want the movie to be exactly what you want, with characters who make the exact choices you would yourself (or pretend you would, anyway), reactions that exactly meet your preconceptions, and with those people whom you peg as good guys and those who you peg as bad guys getting what you think they ought to have coming to them ... and most of all, to agree thematically with your political, social and moral philosophies. It's a pity when you run into a flick that doesn't measure up.
Where I differ, though, is in the sheer *indignation* I'm reading in the comments: how dare this movie not reflect my worldview? And that's desperately unfair.
8/10: it's realistic, it's honest and ... it HAPPENS.