Juno: Movie Review

Juno
Reviewed by Marti
CS Rating: Teenage angst has never been this good!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467406/

Teen pregnancy has never been so entertaining! Not the obvious ingredients for a hit, but Juno is scooping up Globe nominations and blowing the critics away.

Ellen Page turns in a dazzling performance as 'Juno', pregnant 'geeky' teen. This is Daria meets My So Called Life. There are some cool observations here; Jocks secretly pine for geeky girls, Cheerleaders aren't brainless and teenagers will always confuse sex and love.

This aint just another teen movie.

Superbad's Michael Cera is perfectly cast as the uber geek love interest of Juno. Like Superbad, Juno is a teenage love story. Superbad concentrated on the man love between two friends, forcing it to play for a lot of slapstick laughs, Juno is a more traditional love story.

Pro-lifers and pro-choices will find little nourishment here. This isn't a statement on teenage pregnancy, Juno learns more about herself and the world through observation than any revelations she goes through being pregnant. That's why the movie works so well.
Another revelation here is Jennifer Garner. Jennifer Garner looks amazing as the desperate wannabe Stepford mom, we want to dislike her so bad, like her husband Jason Bateman, but the pair of them deliver their best performances I've ever witnessed. There both a long way home from Alias/Arrested Development.

Screenwriter Diablo Cody, ex-stripper and that rare thing, a celebrity writer, delivers a tight script with over the top dialogue, good use of showing the story rather than telling. You'd think she'd been writing movie scripts for years. We know Juno realises she's falling in love with Cera when she fills his post box with the orange Tic Tacs Cera is addicted to.

A sweet little movie about a sweet little girl who like all teens, thinks she knows everything, painfully waking up to the fact she only just learning how the big bad world works.

One key criticism is the oh-so-cool chats about favourite movies and music that doesn't ring true and clunks in an otherwise cliché free teen movie.

And did I mention Jennifer Garner? No-one told me she could act this good!

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