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773 comments in total

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469 out of 788 people found the following comment useful :-
Manipulative and Simplistic, 13 January 2008

Author: isabelle1955 from Brit living in California

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Look, I do get it. I fully appreciate that a film about a girl who gets pregnant, has an early abortion, then manages to move on, would be a pretty short movie. In fact, so short it wouldn't get made. No one wants to know about reality. And certainly in 21st century North America, no one wants to portray abortion as a viable option. Very, very bad form currently.

But when I see this film reviewed as "blazingly truthful" and the pregnant 16 year old central character described as being 'in a pickle', as I did in one review, as if perhaps she'd forgotten a homework assignment and might get detention, I have to admit that the cynic who lurks in my soul gets full rein. This is basically a cutesy film about being pregnant at 16, where despite a few problems, everyone gets to live pretty much happily ever after. Gosh, girl in a pickle comes good! Ahhh!! And apparently everyone in the cinema where I saw it was quite overwhelmed by attacks of the warm fuzzies, except me. Two seats away, a woman slightly older than me was weeping joyfully by the end while behind me, young women were giggling happily as sweet Juno's bump grew. Good grief! Is this really a message we want to give to 16 year olds?

I'm beginning to think I'm something of an oddity. You see, I don't find it 'blazingly truthful' that a bright, resourceful and articulate 16 year old as Juno is portrayed, would be so dumb as to have inadequately protected sex then seem surprised to find herself up the spout. One point of the script is that Juno herself apparently initiated the sex, thought it through in advance in fact, because she was bored. I therefore assume the pregnancy was at least to some extent planned. And if she really had no idea that sex might lead to pregnancy, her parents (portrayed as bemused but supportive), should be excoriated for such inadequate parenting. And if I see one more review which describes Juno as a comedy about growing up 'and the bumps along the way….' (I'm prepared to bet good money on that having been written by a middle aged man), I swear I'm going to run amok in the local mall with a urine dip stick. Being pregnant at 16 isn't a sweet joke, abortion clinics (whatever you think of their morality - and I'm neutral on that) are not run by morons, and while Juno has some amusing one-liners, and a good central performance from Ellen Page, it is basically a deeply flawed, superficial movie which is trying too hard to be cute. It's extremely manipulative.

I'm going to be very controversial and suggest that far from being surprised by an unplanned pregnancy, Juno might actually be a very willful young woman who wants to add pregnancy/childbirth/adoption to her 'experiments-in-living' list. At everyone else's expense. It certainly makes her the center of attention. She wouldn't be the first girl to get pregnant for that reason.

I found the situation between the adoptive parents more convincing. Childless Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) is desperate for a baby. Husband Mark is not so sure, and does at least eventually face up to the truth of his uncertainty by making a break for it. He may be 40 going on 18, but he's being honest about it. And for me the most moving scene in the whole film was when Vanessa held the newborn child in her arms for the first time, having decided to go it alone as a mother anyway. If there is a message to be taken from this movie, it's possibly that becoming a mother when the time is right, is just fine.

A superficial, cutesy, lightweight movie. The fact it was written by a woman is no excuse. I am gobsmacked that it's been nominated.

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474 out of 807 people found the following comment useful :-
This movie has stayed with me, 28 November 2007

Author: brino7 from United States

I saw this movie at a preview in St. Louis about ten days ago and can't stop thinking about it.

I had no expectations going in (as I was given three free passes) as I took my teenage daughter and her friend. Learning about the subject matter, I was quite anxious how it would be shown and frankly I thought it was done very well.

First of all everyone has gone to High School with a Juno. That smart alec independent tomboy, cute, refreshing & fun to be around but not cool to date or be seen with. And the further removed from high school you are, you look back and wonder why? The acting by Ellen Page was outstanding (I had no clue who Ellen Page was - I have since watched Hard Candy). I can't remember a film that I was so drawn in by the main character.

I've always told friends for me the mark of a good movie is the character actors and their performances. They all deliver in this movie. I'm not going to go overboard and say its the best movie this year but it is one that I would recommend. Its rare I go to a preview and actually want to go see it again. Count me in come Dec 14th.

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256 out of 414 people found the following comment useful :-
I want my 10 dollars back!, 30 January 2008

Author: Ivonamcgill from Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I must be the only person who can honestly say I didn't crack a smile once throughout the entire movie. It was hard for me to smile because I was busy being irritated at the horrible dialogue and annoying "jokes" spewed out by Juno and her stupid friends. Perhaps the worst part of all was the irritating and unnecessary indie "girl with a guitar" music constantly fading in and out throughout the movie.

The pattern to "Juno" was more or less like this: "I have a hamburger phone" *insert music to show how quirky Juno is with her hamburger phone* "Umm dad I got pregnant" *insert music to show what a dilly of a pickle Juno is in* "Ah well, stuff happens" says the dad *insert indie guitar with girl singing about how stuff happens* So just imagine 96 minutes of that kind of manure.

I respect Ellen Page as an actress but this movie is just too annoying. The only part of the movie I really enjoyed and seemed to have any depth to it was the situation with the couple who wanted to adopt Juno's child and their relationship. They were complex and real, and actually made me feel really sad and pity them.

I read through some reviews and I do not see any connections between Juno and Family Guy humor. I love Family Guy, and Juno is nothing like it. If I had to compare Juno to any movie I would say that it's a failed wannabe of Napoleon Dynamite.

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418 out of 743 people found the following comment useful :-
I don't buy it, sorry., 2 January 2008

Author: oddlaww from United States

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This whole movie was just one big farce. A great representation of stupid trivial empty references and buzz phrases that I am sure we will want to forget ever existed in the next year or so.

I saw it as less of a "independent" movie (or any sort of attempt at social commentary, character study, creative screen writing, etc) and more of a way for a company to make some money off the idiots who buy into laughing at jokes based on things that exist in the current culture.

HAHA she said something about how she eats "Taco Bell" or HAHA she drinks blue slushie drinks or HAHA orange tic-tacs or HAHA she mentioned "blogs". HAHA THATS SO FUNNY HOW CREATIVE OF YOU! Its all pointless garbage that only tries to cover up the fact that this movie had no storyline, the acting was bad (and I mean bad because the cast portrayed characters that seemed basically written for them specifically judging from their other work) and the soundtrack was comprised of quirky-indie-folky three-chord acoustic guitar movie music 101 that is so far past the point of being contrived and unoriginal it bewilders me how anyone could think it is genius.

I found the jokes annoying, the dialogue extremely annoying and the main character Juno was the most shallow person ever with no regard for anyone but her own selfish "I think I know more than those big dumb uncool adults" mentality. You ask why everyone in school is staring at you? Its because you are purposely making them stare at you by eating in the trophy case with your giant pregnant gut intentionally sticking out of that outfit next to your cliché "mountain of food" wrappers strewn all over yourself and said trophy case! As someone else said, the mentality of the screenwriter is that she not only owns a hamburger phone, but she WANTS everyone to know that she owns a hamburger phone! How can someone make such a desperate cry for attention but then shun everyone when they pay attention? It is all too forced and perfectly executed where I would ever believe that this was truly just a story written to warm people's hearts. This was just an example of how nowadays, everything is fair game for corporate rape; even hamburger phones and unknown-to-the-mainstream folk bands like the Moldy Peaches.

The public is buying into it, falling for it and just contributing to the further stupification and ignorance of everyone. It's a disgrace of a film and an insult to people who really work hard to CREATE THEIR OWN meaningful independent films. This writer just stole the ideas, subjects, personalities, words and lines from things created by people other than her so she can go buy a nice luxury house and live off the earnings fed by the sheep who hail this movie as brilliant.

You want to tell the already-rich vultures banking off this film how much you like to be controlled by them?? Go see this movie.

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162 out of 234 people found the following comment useful :-
about as indie as Avril is punk rock, 21 February 2008

Author: ceburo from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I rarely post things on internet blogs but this is a bit of a concern of mine. I am worried that beautiful films such as L'Infant are going to now be classified in the same category as Juno. I understand the mass appeal of this movie-- the mainstream audience being confused and thinking it's an indie flick by the gritty film used and the obscure references but Juno is in no way an independent film. I think why it is so ineffective is because the audience it was trying to attract (the movie fanatics who hate big budget Hollywood junk i.e. anything with Jessica alba in it) saw it for what it really was: Hollywood junk wrapped up in a converse shoelace bow. It was as indie as Avril is punk rock.

Furthermore it is (in my opinion) a tasteless, pointless movie. For the majority of the film I am more annoyed with Juno than I am sympathetic to her plight. I also have a hard time relating to her as she is NOT a 16year old but rather a 35year olds characterization of a 16 year old (does this make sense?) I have NEVER heard a teenager / young adult in my life ever utter ridiculous lines such as "honest to blog?" or "yea I'm total for-shiz". What the hell? I thought maybe a stripper turned blogger would have been a little more able to develop a story with characters that are down to earth but this Juno character is absurd.

Plus the rest of the film is completely underdeveloped-- you never see the relationship with her stepmother develop or understand why it is the way it is. Her relationship with bleaker has maybe 25 minutes but it is in no way a developed understood relationship. In fact he's barely even seen! The summary of the movie includes the words "and with her beautiful friends help…" but in the movie there is absolutely no connection with her friends beauty and the relevance of it. Was there supposed to be some conflict? All these story arcs that were never completed.

I was very disappointed with this movie. Fox searchlight has produced many good films (notes on a scandal, little miss sunshine, the last king of Scotland, etc) but this is just an embarrassment. It wasn't as though the actors were bad-- Michael Cera as usual plays the adorable awkward adolescent and Ellen page, Jason Batemen, Jennifer Gardner, etc play their roles respectively but the whole premise of the movie was so over the top and unrealistic. Oscar worthy? It's ludicrous. This is a movie worth missing.

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210 out of 352 people found the following comment useful :-
Don't Believe the Rave Reviews, 26 December 2007

Author: (moody308@live.com) from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Listen, I love Diablo Cody. I've read her book, watched her on Lettermen, and quite honestly, I would do her upside down.

But "Juno" misses the mark and it's largely Diablo Cody's fault. She simply cannot write dialogue. In this mess-of-a-film, the characters are indistinguishable because they all have the same snappy wit. Sure, the actress who played Juno (Ellen somebody) was absolutely tremendous. What was unclear was why the father--Justin Bateman--abruptly decided to leave his wife. To potentially hook up with Juno, who was somewhat of a younger physical version of his wife? And why was Juno's stepmom in the maternity room when the baby was being retrieved by the adoptive mother? Diablo, please stick to writing snappy, coming-of-age books.

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301 out of 534 people found the following comment useful :-
Notes from 2007 TIFF, 9 September 2007

Author: Richard from Toronto

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I saw this film at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.

Juno MacGuff (played magnificently by TIFF regular Ellen Page), finds herself pregnant, knocked up by her best friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) on their first attempt at sex. Juno, with the help of her best friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby), takes it upon herself to find some adoptive parents. Courtesy of the local Penny Saver, she soon finds childless couple Mark and Vanessa (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner).

With the help of her surprisingly supportive father (J.K. Simmons) and stepmom (Allison Janney), Juno embarks on her pregnancy, which ends up affecting everyone in some unexpected and touching ways.

This was a great film, probably the best I've seen so far at the festival. Ellen Page gives a wonderful performance as Juno, convincingly portraying her as a real independent free spirit. Michael Cera was good and funny, although I occasionally had trouble divorcing his character from George-Michael Bluth. J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney did a nice turn as Juno's parents. Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman were great as the adoptive parents who, while seemingly the perfect suburban couple on the outside, have their own sets of issues on the inside. Bateman especially gave a great performance as Mark, who is worried about sacrificing his own dreams as he connects with Juno over a shared love of music and the reality of the baby sinks in.

This is director Jason Reitman's follow up to his first feature film, Thank You For Smoking, which also debuted at the festival on the exact same date and time in 2005. This is screenwriter Diablo Cody's first feature film, and she put together a refreshing take on the typical teen pregnancy story with some great dialogue for the actors. The audience laughed so hard at some of the lines, they drowned out the ones that followed.

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204 out of 341 people found the following comment useful :-
there was something to like in this movie ???, 20 February 2008

Author: progmetal from Chicago, United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

How original. A teenage girl who has the "old soul" vibe to her and for no explained reason has knowledge of '77 Punk though she was born in the '90's and her dimwitted blonde friend sure doesn't know who Richard Hell would be. This movie is almost a slap in the face to anyone who has a good set of morals. Her "only" options are to go to an abortion clinic or give the baby up to spoiled yuppies? The basically uninformed and shy Michael cera has basically no say in anything until all her options run out and then she "decides" that they must have been in love all along. And the comments she makes while getting her ultrasound are borderline offensive and her mom had no right to stick up for her daughters constantly talking and babbling mouth. The fact that ANY teenager would actually act and talk like Juno is a farce. She even keeps stopping by the adopters house unannounced and basically hitting (or flirting) with Jason Bateman who is supposed to be adopting this baby! And OF COURSE the parents are not only supportive but have plenty of wacky looks and one-liners themselves. The soundtrack is even worse then the crappy dialogue in this movie. I left this movie feeling insulted and the lack of 'moral' to this story is ????? That you try two different ways to ditch your own kid (who she always refers to as "it") and when nothing works you go to the original father and say "lucky you"! Even the sex that took place was non-emotional and scary to think that high schoolers would just do it so casually like that. And why are people putting associating the word "indie" w/ this movie? It has major stars in it and looks pro. If I could of ripped my head from my body and thrown it at the screen in order to get this movie to stop I would have. Ellen Page deserves cut-out bargain bin for this movie not any awards. Her performance was of utter annoyance. Maybe the "american pie" movie crowd likes this but if you are a true lover of film....skip it!

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154 out of 242 people found the following comment useful :-
A shallow, poorly considered exploitation of these important issues, 16 January 2008

Author: mrethanboy from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

At first blush, "Juno" seems like a pretty great movie. It's entertaining and lots of fun to watch. There's a great cast, and each of the film's characters are well-sketched and interesting. First-rate cinematography keeps the film colorful and engaging from start to finish. There are more than enough quirks, witty dialogues and obscure name-droppings to keep the hipsters placated. Perhaps it's just a bit pretentious and tries just a bit too hard, but these flaws could be overlooked. The movie should have been a charming little indie-lite film.

But it's not. Ultimately, I stepped out of the theater feeling frustrated and unsatisfied. The problem is that "Juno" tackles two very relevant issues in today's society –- namely, abortion and teenage pregnancy –- and utterly fails to address either in a way that is realistic or compelling. Now, maybe it's unfair to expect Juno to make a decent exploration of these complex themes. It's just a comedy, after all. However, even as many critics praise the movie's keen humor and witty banter, it's hard not to get caught up in the fact that this movie painfully abuses these highly relevant issues.

In one particularly wince-worthy scene, Juno's stepmother tells off an ultrasound technician for indicating that teenage mothers are less capable of taking care of their kids than adults. She argues that teenagers could be just as devoted to their children as their adult counterparts, and that she should stick to the things that she knows about. Instead of defending her position, the technician wordlessly exits while Juno, her friend and her stepmother exchange verbal high-fives.

The film makes offers no exploration of the ultrasound technician's completely valid viewpoint. Are teenagers ready to leave school to get a job and start supporting a dependent of their own? Are these kids really mature enough to tackle these issues? Should they have to? Does the amount of devotion to the baby really matter when you can hardly afford food and shelter? These relevant questions are left unasked. The scene is telling of either the director's ignorance or else his pointed attempt to skew facts to make a point, and neither shines well on the movie.

Juno MacGuff seems to be living in a dream world. Never mind her ridiculous vocabulary or unrealistically snappy sarcasm – her parents barely react to the news of her pregnancy, she almost effortlessly finds parents to adopt her unborn child (in a newspaper want ad, no less), the legal issues are smoothed out in the span of 30 seconds and Juno's social ostracism is hinted at but hardly explored in any meaningful way. Instead of getting a believable portrayal of teenage pregnancy, the film offers the pretentious name-dropping of hip punk bands. At one point, Juno actually says "Sonic Youth is just noise" as a biting insult. It's all a tad ridiculous.

At the end of the day, perhaps none of this should interfere with enjoyment of the movie. Perhaps one should gloss over the film's aggravating biases and enjoy what is otherwise a great film. However, the fact remains that Juno passes itself as an artsy independent film about teenage pregnancy and abortion, but it is little more than a shallow, poorly considered exploitation of these important issues.

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129 out of 194 people found the following comment useful :-
Let's not get carried away, people., 16 October 2007

Author: shizz_27 from United States

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"Juno" is funny (nearly every single line of dialogue is written to elicit laughter), directed with at just as sure a hand as "Thank You For Smoking".. possibly surer.. and acted gamely by the whole cast -- especially Olvia Thirlby and J.K. Simmons as the title character's galpal and understanding dad. The script, by Diablo Cody, is rich with one-liners; anyone who's read Candy Girl (which is unbelievably intelligent and funny; her description of Shania Twain, especially, had me rolling) will kind of know what to expect.

This is without a doubt Ellen Page's show. She's in almost every scene, and I couldn't spot an instalnce when she made a bad decision or timed a delivery anything but dead-on. During a funky, kick azz opening title sequence, Juno is on her way to the pharmacy. "I just drank my weight in Sunny D, and gotta go, pronto!" It's time for another pregnancy test, because the last result looked more like a division symbol than a plus sign. New stick: same plus.

The father's a guy Juno had sex with once upon a time, who also happens to be her best friend, Paulie Bleeker (a non-affected, quite bland Michael Cera). She decides to give it up for adoption, being 16 and all, which Paulie supports -- as do Juno's father and step-mom -- and the rest of the film is about her selection of adoptive parents.

Pretty straightforward storytelling, but with an ear for quirky, hip dialogue. If the spoken words were any more "cool", or the actors speaking them did so with any less suave, my gag reflex might have taken over. The AFF audience I saw it with, last Sunday, couldn't get enough from the second Juno tells a dog to shut up, through lines comparing babies to iPods and Alison Janney going off on a physician.

There's good stuff, here. And even though it never really swept me off my feet, the film is consistently humorous and, in one scene near the end, somewhat heartbreaking.

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