Heart overcomes quirk OD

Rating: 7/10 (26 December 2007)

I'm writing to provided some much needed balanced criticism. 99% of the reviews here are OMG! Or totally hating.
Let's dismiss the main hater point: The dialogue is not realistic, "nobody talks like that!" I'm sorry, but you'll have to point me to the carven letters on the tablets of screen writing that Robert McKee brought down from the Griffith Park Observatory in the Hollywood Hills to find the hoi-polloi worshiping the fake-golden skin of pornstars that say that your dialogue has to be realistic. If you want realistic dialogue go have a conversation, you'll see how exciting it is.
Now the good things: Ellen Page is radiant and perfect. All of the performances are top-notch across the board but it's obviously a starmaker for her. She brings out the vulnerability behind each of the tough stances and snappy remarks. Michael Cera is also perfect and hilariously ill-at-ease as the pursued ("whose idea was it?"). J.K. Simmons and Alison Janney do solid, sensitive and funny work as parents that are much more fiercely protective and supportive than their easy demeanor might suggest. The baby-belly is very realistic, too, so props to props.
Now the problems: Really what we have here is an okay script saved by excellent direction and performances. It obviously is frontloaded with too much quirk, but it helps that many of those early lines are actually funny. However, most of the heart that makes the whole thing worthwhile is provided by the actors and not the script. Paulie Bleeker has almost no distinguishing characteristics, there's no reason for Juno to be in love with himexcept that it's Michael Cera. See what I mean? With even just a passable cast this would have been a disaster of the-kid-in-Little-Miss-Sunshine-wore-a-fatsuit proportions. The area that is not saved is the portrayal of the couple (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner). Bateman's performance gives the character a dignity that is completely lacking in the script, which uses him mainly as a joke aboutArrested Development. Oy. And he almost raises his son's kid, in TV-Movie cross-pollination. Anyway, it portrays the way Jennifer Garner's character freezes him completely out of the relationship and makes him live all of the parts of his life that matter to him in basements and closets as second to the outrage of HOW COULD HE NOT WANT A BABY??? It refuses to take his character seriously, as evidenced by his come-on to Juno, which crosses a line of reality. He's a guy that has compromised his dreams and is actually contributing, he's not some burnout, but they treat him like a stuck-in-the-90's joke. Then on the other side is Garner's character, a psychotic frigid control freak we're supposed to believe is going to be the best mother ever. I pity that kid and the incarceration that lies before it. The film seems to prefer a strange idea of a relationship and adulthood, where you get rid of anything you care about, live only for cheesecake colored paint, and if you don't you might be the sort of person that tries to mack it to a pregnant 16 year-old.
What is up with these baby saviors? Solondz should have released "Palindromes" this year.
Also: Diablo Cody (the stupidest name I've ever heard) is so disingenuous when she claims not to have ambition; she's obviously made of it. Plus: David Bowie wrote "All the Young Dudes," bears mentioning? In the end, this shows how good Jason Reitman really is (huzzah nepotism). I enjoyed and was invested in the film as it was happening, it was only later it began to bother me, but still whoever put it there "Juno" has a lot of heart and that's what carries the film.