Film

Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, teenager Juno (Page) reacts with the droll sangfroid you’d expect of that smart but underachieving high-schooler who sits in the back of the class and looks bored, but has read Sartre, possibly in the original. Like a cross between Rory Gilmore and one of the Ghost World teens, Juno has a ready supply of snappy, pop culture–riffing cynicism (she’d call it pragmatism). Of course, given that her father (Simmons) and stepmother (Janney) riff like characters on the smartest sitcom ever, you can see where she got her sensibility.

For many people, the cleverness of the dialogue (and Diablo Cody’s screenplay is undeniably clever as hell) is the reason to see this movie. Frankly, we came precariously close to tiring of Juno. Even in conversation with the couple (Garner and Bateman) who hope to adopt her baby, she can’t resist a knowing zinger or three. But just when we were ready to write off this character—and this movie—as witty but a bit heartless, Page, Cody and Reitman won us back with a delicately handled turn to sincerity. As Juno navigates the brave new world of pregnancy and a tentative romance with the baby’s father (Cera, terrific as usual), she becomes a teen we’d actually like to know. And that says a lot.