It’s a sweet/tart movie triumph with a sweetheart of a smart-alecky girl protagonist to love. You’d be hard-pressed to have a better time at the multiplex these days than with “Juno,” both the coming-of-age comedy and the title character. This may not be the most technically ambitious or meaningful film of 2007. But the unpredictable slice of life about a cantankerous yet endearing pregnant 16-year-old is the year’s most exuberant and witty picture thus far.
Directed by Jason Reitman and scripted by Hollywood’s latest “it” writer, the post-feminist former stripper Diablo Cody, the hilariously hapless adventures of the expectant Juno MacGuff (“Hard Candy’s” beyond adorable Ellen Page) scoot along at a snappy pace punctuated by a quirky/catchy soundtrack and Cody’s quirky/unflinching dialogue. The banter may sometimes seem self-consciously “movie-ish,” but so what? That repartee — along with the vivid characters who deliver it — keeps some eventually touching plot turns from playing as corny and constantly buoys the entertainment value of a potentially grim subject.
Though the plucky Juno is “knocked up,” she wears her dilemma and her hugely expanding belly lightly. No wonder she’s blessed with a faithful, if often similarly sarcastic, support system. It includes her tolerant working-class dad (J.K. Simmons) and stepmom (“West Wing’s” Allison Janney, defying the evil stepmother stereotype), her best pal (Olivia Thirlby) and her sympathetically humble love interest Paulie (“Superbad’s” Michael Cera). Paulie is the nice, verbally stunted nerd inadvertently responsible for fertilizing the bun in Juno’s oven.
Now the question is: What should she do?
First, she considers then rules out the abortion option in a set piece that spoofs more than it inflames either side of the politically sensitive issue. Next, the yuppie couple of Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) and Mark (Jason Bateman) enter. Juno finds the barren couple through an ad in the local supermarket Penny Saver. She bonds with Mark over his love of rock music and slasher flicks and quickly decides to let them adopt her baby. But the gestation period takes some unpredictable turns as the desperately maternal Vanessa sweats out the wait and the rotund Juno faces the stigma of her high school hallways. She calls herself “a cautionary whale.”
You won’t guess what happens next, as all bad Lifetime Moviecliches are defied.
Throughout, Juno — thanks to Page’s tour de force performance — remains somehow both defiant and vulnerable. She’s a magnificent everyday heroine, a role model even, though parents might not see a pregnant teen that way. But, mostly, she and her movie are a hoot.
‘Juno’
*****
Starring: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman
Director: Jason Reitman
Rated R for mature thematic material, sexual content and language
Running time: 95 minutes
