First for the part that everybody already knows. Juno is an independent film about a 16 year old girl, Juno (Ellen Page), who became pregnant with the child of one of the other students at her high school (Michael Cera). She decides to keep her baby and give it up for adoption to a seemingly nice suburban couple, Mark (Jason Bateman) and Vanessa (Jennifer Garner). She gains the support of her parents and everything goes swimmingly for the most part. It was directed by Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking) and written by Diablo Cody (real name: Brook Busey-Hunt).
Alright, now on to more interesting things. To summarize my opinion on Juno in comparison to those of others, in the words of Mugatu, "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills." I had been looking forward to this movie for a little while; not only was it getting rave reviews (94% on rotten tomatoes, damn!), but it also had both Michael Cera and Jason Bateman in it, two of my favorite people in the biz who haven't been reunited since their roles in Arrested Development. I was excited for a fresh plot, great characters, and funny/thought provoking dialogue and plot.
Well this is what I get for getting my hopes up. When I first walked out of the theater, I knew Juno had not quite lived up to my expectations, but I had somewhat enjoyed it, and it certainly had some amusing parts, so I was satisfied. However, upon further review of the movie, I quickly realized how it was no where near what I had hoped or what the reviews had told me to expect. My opinion grew worse and worse every time I thought about Juno; I can barely even remember substantial things I liked about it.
Let us start with the dialogue. Almost every review (including the one on the featured poster) claims that the dialogue in Juno is new, witty, and funny. I guess one out of three isn't bad because it sure is new, but it is most certainly not witty or funny for more than a couple of minutes. Never before have I encountered a character with dialogue so absurd as Juno. After the first scene in which she interacts with a convenience store cashier (Rainn Wilson), I already felt saturated with over the top shit dialogue that was making a desperate attempt at being hip. If only I had known that the entire movie was going to be the same type of dialoge, over and over again. I suppose Diablo Cody has never heard the saying "everything in moderation," because she wrote the script in a way that every god damn thing that comes out of Juno's mouth (and most of the other characters) had to be witty/sarcastic/funny. And no one can deny that some of the things she says do, indeed, posses such qualities. But these moments are so few and far between that the rest of it brings the movie way down. As the reviewer Bill Clark put it, "Diablo Cody has absolutely raided the Urban Dictionary in her effort to craft The Coolest Screenplay Ever," that last part being sarcasm. Basically, the dialogue tries way, way too hard to be funny/cool in order to give off the idea that it is fresh and witty, but it quickly becomes repetitive and extremely annoying. For example, the use of the terms "home-skillet" and "honest to blog" in Juno (or anything else) greatly anger me and are in no way amusing. This annoyingly stupid dialogue also brought down the character Juno, who became increasingly more unrealistic with almost everything she said. I can't even imagine a person in real life talking the same way that she does in Juno, and if I did know someone who constantly talked like that, I would most certainly not enjoy their company; she is almost impossible to relate to. How the majority of of the reviewers I have seen have not included this in their criticisms, I do not understand. For those who have seen it and know what I'm talking about, I guarantee that if the comic relief character in the movie National Treasure (we all know who I'm talking about) talked the way Juno (and other characters) does, people would hate it.
As for the plot, it was interesting enough, it kept me in the theater, but it was fundamentally flawed. Thematically, Juno was very confused, and it lacked the great punch that good dramedy indies such as Little Miss Sunshine possessed. Throughout the movie I kept waiting for a fantastic conclusion that was heart-felt and powerful, but that moment never arrived. Simply put, Juno spreads itself way too thin; it tries to cover so many large issues at once that an overall message is completely lost by the end (and the dialogue does not help). Once things start getting more serious in the third act, the story become more interesting (possibly because of the decreased amount of distractingly bad dialogue), but it ends up falling apart, failing to bring it all together.
I left Juno with absolutely no desire to see it again, and probably wouldn't if I were given the chance. It was not very funny, although it had some moments, the dialogue was unbelievably "look at how cool this is" and the plot was barely good enough to keep me interested to the end. Despite all this, it was alright, I don't hate it and I've definitely seen worse movies. So see it if you really think you want to, but don't feel like you should because of its amazing reviews. If you're on the fence about it, don't bother.
And how could I leave my readers without a quote from Pete Hammond, who is seemingly the only reviewer for Maxim magazine. Amazingly, this is the first time I've seen Pete Hammond write anything negative about a film, even though it was just a sentence, and he even balances it out with a compliment at the end (nice save there, Pete!). So, soak it up, I have a feeling we will not see one of these again for a while.
"[Juno] is a terrific and richly original comedy, like no other this year. First-time screenwriter Diablo Cody has a great ear for quirky dialogue and creating misfit teen characters many in the audience will relate to. Some of it is a little too contrived, particularly an abrupt shift in tone in scenes between Bateman and Page, but most of it works surprisingly well."
