Real Review - Juno

I really wanted to dislike Juno even before I watched it. Certainly a film about an unwanted teenage pregnancy would fail to entertain. If not for an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, I probably would have never bothered with this movie. But, having viewed the other nominated films for this year’s Best Picture, I owed it to myself to see how Juno measured up against the competition.

In a nutshell, Juno, played by Ellen Page, finds herself pregnant at sixteen and determined to have her baby but put it up for adoption. After meeting with the prospective parents, Juno develops a mild crush on the father-to-be, played by Jason Bateman. Apparently thirty-something year old Bateman still has rock & roll dreams, and thus isn’t really ready to become a daddy. With the changing circumstances, should Juno keep her baby or still go through with the adoption?

Basically, the plot is pretty thin and the success of Juno really rests with the strong performance of Ellen Page. Despite some pretty forgettable performances by the supporting cast, it is the precocious Juno who makes things interesting. Somehow, despite not being an over-achiever and “just” a teenager, Juno has managed to become culturally literate.

Amazingly, Juno is able to stand emotionally aloof from her predicament, and it is this emotion-detachment that I found disarming about Juno. To her credit, she knows she could not adequately care for a child, but, then again, is she really ready to be in a romantic relationship? Because I could not form an emotional response to the Juno character, I ultimately didn’t care what she chose to do. Our hero was only lovable in the sense that she was “doing the right thing,” and, frankly, for me, that was not enough.

Despite winning the Oscar for best screenplay, Juno really doesn’t uncover any new ground here. Despite a literate script and a strong performance by Ellen Page, Juno doesn’t measure up to the competition. I’m not sure how it managed a nomination for Best Picture, so it’s fair to say that I didn’t think much about the film. It was okay, and that’s about it.

Rating: 7

Source Chuck’s Movie Reviews

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