Cute. Period.

Rating: 7/10 (18 May 2008)

What Juno is is a cute film. It's not great, it's not beautiful, it's not hilarious. It's cute. It's from the Wes Anderson/Jeffrey Blitz/Dayton-Faris school of film-making, an eccentric independent comedy made on a so-so budget that prefers the deadpan and understated way out. It puts to good use tangible social touches like the hamburger phone, the different expressive clothing styles of the teenage characters. But let us please stop giving Juno so much kudos. I simply do not understand this. 2007 is a year of almighty standard-setting American films. Why are we putting this one so high up on a pedestal? If American audiences are to praise a film of this effect, why has there hardly been any recognition congratulated to Blitz's Rocket Science, a funnier and much more insightful film within this said school of recent indie cinema?
At first Juno seems almost socially handicapped with the way the title character acts when first meeting two prospective adoptive parents for her unborn child, played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman. It seems as if Juno intends to shock them with her opposition to verbal self- control or formality. It's not unclear as the story builds that she is unaware of what kind of person she is thus her approach to people is like a take-me-or-leave-me compensating attitude. The scene is not directed to par.
Overnight Hollywood success story Diablo Cody's script gives Ellen Page, a great young actress who gave an unreal performance in Hard Candy, a machine gun barrage of zingers, one-liners, and wry comical references to music and cinema that she turns out to be Woody Allen reincarnated as the hip, cocky, middle-America teenage non-Jew.
The ending also goes in the wrong direction for a film that we all are finding so touching. It does not leave me with the right spirit its ending should have. I will make it clear though that I do not want my resentment for this film's random accolades and popularity to distort my view of the film itself. I will close with my overall verdict on Juno, which is that it is a cute teen movie with just enough laughs, decent performances, and obscure references for me to have enjoyed myself.