Kudos to Jennifer Garner! How she wasn't nominated for, like, any Best Supporting Actress awards beats me.

I was highly impressed by this movie's ability to make light of a serious subject without bastardizing it. Great cast, great script, great direction.

I like Diablo Cody... She's twisted!

There are movies that are bad, movies that are sinful, movies that are insulting to the intelligence, and movies that just downright suck...this manages to do all of them and more, creating a piece of garbage that made me (totally seriously) vomit af... (read more) There are movies that are bad, movies that are sinful, movies that are insulting to the intelligence, and movies that just downright suck...this manages to do all of them and more, creating a piece of garbage that made me (totally seriously) vomit after I suffered through it the first time.
What was wrong with the film? What's right with the film, that's the shorter answer. I can sum it up in two words: Jason Bateman. And even that's a stretch considering he's painted out to be the bad when, in fact, you can sympathize with him. I mean, come on, we're supposed to believe he's a bad person for wanting to leave his wife and not wanting to be a father, that this somehow makes him childish and he needs to grow up, when his wife has been forcing him to give up on his dreams for years so she could play mommy? That's just one thing.
Now let's get to the bad stuff. I have to make a short list, coz this could go on forever. The lead is completely unlikeable and unsympathetic. Granted, Ellen Page is a talented young actress, but this character just made me want to slap her. She claims her friend is gung-ho about the whole pregnancy thing yet she NEVER ACTUALLY REACTS TO IT! Not once do we see that moment of 'Oh Shit! I'm pregnant.' It's more like, 'Oh, ok, whatever.' And with her God-awful dialogue, how can we take her seriously. It's good to have a lead we can dislike, but we have to like her as well, but she's rude, obnoxious, and just downright boring in every scene.
The supporting cast is unacceptably horrible. Michael Cera...is Michael Cera, that's pretty much how bad it is. And even worse, they missed the opportunity to have him and Jason Bateman, father and son from Arrested Development, in a scene together to reach out to AD fans like me. They didn't even need to speak more than a couple lines, but no; in this film, if it's creative and interesting, we can't have that. JK Simmons and Allison Janney, two very very talented actors, are in completely throw-away roles. The mom serves just to serve as an asshole, threatening to beat her child (yeah, this movie is supposed to be a comedy) and insulting an African American nurse for, correctly, saying that teenage mothers do not provide the best homes. I mean, seriously, she tells the nurse that she should stick to what she knows. SHE'S AN ULTRASOUND TECHNICIAN! SHE'S DEALT WITH HUNDREDS OF MOTHERS, SOME OF WHICH WERE PROBABLY TEENAGERS! I THINK SHE KNOWS WHAT SHE'S TALKING ABOUT! Juno's air-headed blonde friend served no purpose other than to be a complete moron, a stereotypical blonde. Jennifer Garner looks like a serial killer. I'm serious, when I first saw her, I was wondering how many bodies were buried in the backyard. She's the poorman's Anne Hathaway, reading off cue-cards and displaying one emotion per scene. You are an actor, lady. And I actually felt sorry for the kid at the end, who would be growing up in a broken household with an overprotective, overbearing, borderline-psychotic mother.
And thus we get to the worst part of the film, the part that defies all badness and wretchedness in existance: the script. Diablo Cody, in a word, sucks. None of the dialogue was natural, none of it was funny, none of it seemed in any way clever. Granted, it was creative, but Ed Wood was creative as well and look where he is. The jokes are just downright stupid, like when Juno first visits the adoptive family and they ask her how far along she is and she replies, 'I'm a junior.' How is this funny? It's stupid. It didn't sound like they were asking her about school, they weren't talking about it beforehand, so where the hell did that reply come from? Dialogue can be funny but it has to flow naturally; you can't just make up your own punchline to a joke that already has one. And then we have the glaring inaccuracies, like how they claim Morgan Freeman was in the Bone Collector even though anyone who's even just glanced at the DVD case can see it's freakin Denzel Washington. Was there any effort in this script? Or how about when she says, 'Thundercats are go!' Anyone who has seen Thundercats knows it's 'Thundercats, ho!' Were they meant to be inaccurate? Well, it isn't funny and it doesn't make sense; if a character references something, they've obviously seen it or know about it. And then there is that gut-wrenching, putrid, heinous quirkiness in the lines, the MTV 'jive talk' that sounds cool but in reality is just retarded. I mean, look at Pulp Fiction, which this script was pretty obviously trying to rip off; Tarantino's dialogue is quirky, but it works with the characters and moves the plot along, and the really quirky dialogue is spaced out so it has more impact. In this piece of garbage, every character speaks the same and EVERY freakin line of dialogue is just dripping with quirkiness, making me wonder if these characters plan out lines before going out saying to themselves 'I'm going to use this line at some point today, no matter what'. The most obvious offender is Rainn Wilson, but I won't knock on him coz I like the guy, even if he's scene was just a pain to sit through.
A note on the quirkiness, every single detail of this film is made so that we know it is an indie film, a quirky film. Why is the chair on the lawn at the beginning of the film? It's quirky. Why is Juno smoking a pipe for no apparent reason? It's quirky. Why does she say she thinks about 'pork-swords' even though she's talking with her boyfriend and she never mentions them again? It's fucking quirky. No rhyme or reason, just to remind us, over and over and over and over and over and over and over that this is an indie film. It's insulting and downright painful. I've got no problems with indie films (i.e. Napoleon Dynamite, Resovoir Dogs) but I don't like it shoved in my face, particularly by grating, awful music also, coincidentely, but indie bands. I want to claw my eyes out.
So what's the worst part of this film, besides everything else? The fact that there is really no story. I mean think about it, this is the whole plot in a nutshell: a girl gets pregnant and has a kid and gives it away. That's it. All plot points are resolved in the first ten minutes. Is she going to keep the baby, abort it, give it away? Solved in the first seven minutes. That would have made a good plot. As for giving the baby away...is she going to need to hold auditions, maybe go through several people to find the right...nope, solved in the first ten minutes, only the third family she looked at. And then it's just padding until the end of the film. And there is nothing to keep me interested because I know nothing bad is going to happen. And that's why it's so boring. There is no freaking conflict! Ok, she's pregnant as a teenager, but that doesn't immediately mean there's conflict. Not once does she have morning sickness, cramps, aches, pains, her parents were not the least bit angry with her, she didn't need to miss any school, she didn't need to get a job, and no one made fun of her. She says people do but, Screenwrighting 101, 'Show, Don't Tell'. She faces no obstacles of any kind. Yes, pregnancy is an obstacle, but it doesn't do anything apart from make her stomach grow. Oh, and apparently when your water has broken, you can run around and walk around completely unaided while making painful grunts more appropriate to stubbing your toe than giving birth. The only real conflict is when Jason Bateman's character leaves and Juno is upset, but she walks right out without much argument and Jennifer Garner and him immediately get a divorce. No counciling, no talking about it, just, 'You don't want to be a dad? Get teh fuck out.' And there was no character development in the slightest. The tagline was, 'A film about growing up, and the bumps along the way.' Juno's character didn't change. The film just assumed we'd buy that she has to act more mature because she's pregnant without having to show us. Her character development isn't how she feels about things or how she perceives the world: it's 'She suddenly knows about this band. She suddenly knows about 70's Italian horror directors.' And everyone else? No characters, really, but are you surprised? Any effort or creativity has to be surpressed in the world of Diablo Cody.
Here's what would have made the film good: Juno has the abortion and then spends the film dealing with it. There will be plenty of room for development and conflict. Maybe her boyfriend wanted the kid. Maybe her parents are extremely religious. Maybe the question of abortion is being asked all over town. True, it wouldn't be a comedy, but then how would it be different than the original? Teen pregnancy does not, and should never in civilized and intelligent society, equal comedy.
The film is...amazing in just how awful it is. It is wretched. It is putrid. It is the worst piece of crap I have ever seen. Granted, I've seen worse-made films, but this beats all of them in shear badness. It's never funny, never clever, never endearing...it's like watching 'Full House' except you feel nauseous in addition to embarrasment. Jason Rietman is a good director and I enjoyed 'Up In The Air' so I want to think of this as just his low point. And what a low it is. There are not words enough to describe how much I hate this film. If I could hurt it, I would. If this movie was a car, I'd have it impounded. If it was a building, I'd burn it up and knock it down. If it was a dog, I'd have it put down. It's just...wow, is it bad. My advice: leave it on the rack and pick out a good, accurate movie about teen prenancy, namely 'Precious.' This eggo is lame-o.
God what an abysmal film.

I think this is a movie that everyone should watch...more people should be as fun and easy going as Juno...Great acting and great story that tugs at your heart. I love this movie!

Juno invites you into a world you won't want to leave.

A fresh, quirky, unusually intelligent comedy about a 16-year-old girl who wins our hearts in the first scene.

A pure charmer and a heartfelt original, you will find this a totally unexpected, enormously satisfying and oddly rewarding trip to the movies.

The engaging story, coupled with the character's likable quirkiness, makes for a film bristling with vitality and heart, without resorting to glibness or sentimentality.

Juno respects the idiosyncrasies of its characters rather than exaggerating them or holding them up for ridicule.