Tries too hard to be relevant.

Rating: 6/10 (13 February 2008)

Juno is the kind of fun, refreshing story that is extremely good the first time you see it and for about a year or so after.
That said, it will never stand the test of time. The movie tries so hard to be relevant to today's youth that in 5 years it won't be funny anymore. The teenage pregnancy storyline will still have impact, but no one will laugh as they watch it.
The majority of this is the fault of Diablo Cody, who tries far too hard to inject teenage dialogue that is indeed embarrassing to any normal self-respecting teenager. By trying to appeal to the teenage population she instead alienated many by portraying our age group as snarky and witty and using "hip" language ("Home-skillet") that just made me and my friends (ranging in age from 16-18) groan out loud.
The movie also contains many obscure, unneeded references that seem to be added in just so Cody can showcase how cultured she is.
Although the film does have some priceless lines that kept me laughing throughout ("I'm already pregnant, what other shenanigans can I get into") every few minutes Cody throws in another forced line that takes me out of the film. One minute I'd be immersed in the story of Juno McGuff and all of a sudden she'd transform into Ellen Page struggling to get through a particularly cheesy line (It's Morgan Freeman).
I don't blame the actors for this, they are doing their best to get through the lines they are forced to spew and they do well with it.
The movie would have received a much higher score had Cody just left her holier-then-thou attitude at home and written something with substance instead of parading her ideals, butchering the way teenagers talk and promoting her favourite movies and songs every few minutes.