If you live in a big city you’ve seen them. The kids in Wicker Park (Chicago), Williamsburg, Brooklyn, The Mission in San Francisco, Capitol Hill in Seattle. The kids with pale skin and arms, legs and necks full of tattoos. The guys with the skinny pencil-leg jeans. The ones whose favorite bands are so much better than your favorite bands.
“Juno” is the cinematic equivalent of these kids. It’s trying to hard, and putting on way too many hipster airs, to be straightforward and real. It’s a shame, because at its core, there’s a story that’s certainly worth better treatment than it gets here. High Schooler Juno (Ellen Page) is pregnant, knocked up on her first time, also the first time of the father, Paulie (Michael Cera) who is her best buddy, not her boyfriend. She decides to deliver the child twice–once in a hospital, then the second time to a couple (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) who cannot conceive.
There are really six characters of central importance in the film. The four mentioned above, and Juno’s dad (J.K. Simmons) and stepmom (Allison Janney). Cera and Garner are given a lot to work with, and pretty much carry the emotional load of the film. Maybe the best accomplishment of “Juno” is that it pulls a pretty good performance out of Garner, who as far as I can tell otherwise is just about the single shittiest actress in Hollywood. Cera is solid as he has been throughout his young career, but he plays the same anxious teen he’s made his calling card. It will be interesting to see if he can transition from teenage awkwardness to a career as an adult.
The rest of the characters are so incredibly disaffected that they don’t stand up as real people. Juno’s parents have almost a non-reaction to the news that she is pregnant. The stepmom is relieved that Juno hasn’t been expelled and isn’t into hard drugs. Juno herself takes the pregnancy in stride, the only emotion we see from her comes strictly as the result of the lack of attention she gets from the men in her life: she’s upset that Paulie is taking a girl to prom, and she’s crestfallen when Bateman’s adoptive-father-to-be doesn’t reveal romantic feelings for her.
The dynamic between Bateman’s Mark and Page’s Juno is based solely on their tastes in music and film. There is a constant barrage of name-dropping between the two: Sonic Youth, Mott The Hopple, Iggy and The Stooges, Dario Argento and more. Some parts call to mind the scene in “Garden State” in which Natalie Portman puts her headphones on Zach Braff’s head and tells him that a Shins song will “change your life.” It’s a relationship based on shared interests.
Cody and Reitman cram the film full of their own obscure interests, everything from the set design (Juno’s telephone is shaped like a hamburger) to the costumes (Juno dresses like a homeless person with unlimited credit at Urban Outfitters) to the discussion of and soundtack presence of obscure and overly hip indie rock. In the hands of a more capable writer and director, like Wes Anderson, the wall-to-wall compacting of minutiae into the frame can come across well, but that is because Anderson tends to have those little items tell us something important and/or interesting about the characters. Juno has a hamburger phone almost for the express purpose of allowing her to shake it and tell the person on the other end “can you hand on, I’m on a hamburger phone.” This does not come across as real. Neither does it come across as real when Juno’s dad asks “hey big puffy version of Junebug, where you been?” and the reply is “Just out dealing with things way beyond my maturity level.” It’s true, she’s been trying to flirt up Bateman, her immaturity in thinking that an older guy who likes horror films is the man for her. But it’s false, because her maturity level at 16 would not let her acknowledge that, and because no teenager delivers a line like that.
In the end, the film has some redeeming qualities that make it worth seeing. Page can deliver a line reading as well as any young actor, and does well enough with the material she’s given. Cera holds that teen angst in his shoulders and on his face extremely well. But I was left cold by the disaffectd characters who seem ever-to-cool to spare any energy on genuine emotion.
1 response so far ↓
I don't know // December 31, 2007 at 4:05 am
I just saw Juno tonight. I said afterward that I felt like the main purpose of the movie was so that they could put their favorite music in the movie. I mean, I sort of Kimya Dawson and I really like Belle and Sebastian… I liked the music. But it was pervading throughout the whole movie and I just felt like it was a bit too purposely “above” the audience. It was kind of pretentious. You put the words right in my mouth with this review.