Juno, a 2007 Academy Award winning comedy drama, tells the story of of an awkward high schooler Juno who becomes pregnant. Upon her decision to keep the baby, she decides to give the baby up for adoption to a couple Vanessa and Mark. Juno's relationship with the father of the baby (Paulie), Mark and Vanessa is focused on.
Directed by Jason Reitman, Juno is the story of pregnant teenager June (Ellen Page). The father is her passive high school friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). She decides to give the baby up for closed adoption to an affluent childless couple, Mark (Jason Bateman) and Vanessa (Jennifer Garner). When Paulie asks another girl to the prom, Juno and he quarrel and they eventually come to realize they are in love with each other. Juno gives the baby up to Vanessa (Mark has split by this time), and Juno and Paulie become a regular teenage couple.
Somewhere between the sharp satire ofElectionand the rich human comedy ofYou Can Count On MeliesJuno, a sardonic but ultimately compassionate story of a pregnant teenage girl who wants to give her baby up for adoption. Social misfit Juno (Ellen Page,Hard Candy,X-Men: The Last Stand) protects herself with a caustic wit, but when she gets pregnant by her friend Paulie (Michael Cera,Superbad), Juno finds herself unwilling to terminate the pregnancy. When she chooses a couple who place a classified ad looking to adopt, Juno gets drawn further into their lives than she anticipated. ButJunois much more than its plot; the stylized dialogue (by screenwriter Diablo Cody) seems forced at first, but soon creates a richly textured world, greatly aided by superb performances by Page, Cera, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman as the prospective parents, and J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man) and Allison Janney as Juno's father and stepmother. Director Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking) deftly keeps the movie from slipping into easy, shallow sarcasm or foundering in sentimentality. The result is smarter and funnier than you might expect from the subject matter, and warmer and more touching than you might expect from the cocky attitude. Page's performance is deceptively simple; she never asks the audience to love her, yet she effortlessly carries a movie in which she's in almost every scene. That's star power. --Bret Fetzer
