Juno – *****

When will I find something to write about on here that sucks? Who knows. All I know is that the only thing I didn’t really like about this movie was the weird Kimya whatever-her-name-is music, but it somehow worked. “#1 album in the country” worked? No…but it worked.I didn’t really like the title sequence. I’m not a fan of cartoon-traced-footage, though. It smacks of preciousness.

Everything else about this movie was excellent, pushing these tiny little quibbles aside and making it deserving of five stars.

Ellen Page plays the titular character, and she does it with depth and consistency. You are reminded of how this is just a teenager, no matter how “worldly” she tries to be, and how much she tries to understand the adult relationships and situations she finds herself in.

Jennifer Garner is perfect as the “barren but destined to be a mother” Vanessa. I already had a huge crush on her from her work on Alias and in other films, but I have to say that she really captured the heart of this woman more than I expected.

Jason Bateman plays her “man-child” husband who doesn’t seem completely ready to be a father. I’m not going to go into it any more and spoil the movie, but he was great.

J.K. Simmons and Alison Janney play Juno’s dad and stepmom, and they’re both perfect as well – there are a lot of good parenting lessons to be learned from these two, however flawed they may be.

And of course, Michael Cera is simply wonderful as the dorky best friend who knocked Juno up. There’s just so much heart in that kid – he really knows how to be uncomfortable and still make you love him.

I honestly hope that it wins the Academy Award for best picture, simply because it’s a heartfelt, REAL, truly emotional and relatable story that doesn’t involve some weird foreign crap, fantasy bullshit, period piece, story of a retard, or other pretentious plot device like so many Best Picture nominees tend to.

It’s just an interesting, heartwrenching story about a little girl who gets pregnant, and to the anti-abortionists, makes the right choice in not having an abortion, and to pro-choicers, makes her own choice, which is the principle they most honor.

Five huge stars for this completely well-done movie. Kudos to Diablo Cody for her wonderful, very funny script, and Jason Reitman for his nuanced and beautiful directing.

Comments are closed.