Juno is an excellent dramedy about an unwanted teen pregnancy. Ellen Page shines as title character Juno, a quirky, sarcastic, and intelligent high school junior who discovers that her single sexual encounter has resulted in pregnancy. The rest of the cast delivers strong performances as well. Allison Janney ("West Wing") and J.K. Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson in the Spiderman movies) play her parents, and Jennifer Garner ("Alias") and Jason Bateman (Michael on "Arrested Development") play the couple planning to adopt her baby that she finds through the Penny Saver. As the father of Juno's baby, Michael Cera ("Superbad" and "Arrested Development") portrays another one of his patented (and always enjoyable to watch) dorky but good hearted high school guys.
All the characters are multi-dimensional and feel real, although one could question whether any high school junior is really as cool and together as Juno is. I especially enjoyed how the movie slowly explores Jennifer Garner's character Vanessa. At first it was startling to see Garner in the role, since your first impression of Vanessa is uptight, emotionally frigid, control freak, and Garner usually plays much more emotional characters. As you get to know Vanessa better though, you see her hidden depths and Garner's natural charm shines through.
I also really enjoyed the movie's soundtrack (which I've already ordered on amazon.com), especially a lot of the songs by Kimya Dawson, that feature really sharp lyrics that almost feel like they are part of the well written dialog of the film. I think there's an excellent chance that Juno will make my top ten movies for 2008, but it wasn't quite good enough for me to guarantee a spot there, so....
Final Grade: A
Saturday, January 5, 2008
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2 comments:
Was it released pre-Christmas to qualify for Oscar consideration, do you know?
According to imdb it was released 12/25/07.
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