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Juno (2007)
Director: Jason Reitman
Movie review
From Time Out New York
We may remember 2007 as the annus cinemus in which everyone freaked out about abortion (was Randall Terry secretly serving as a big-studio producer?) and in which the number of films with teenage-girl protagonists—ranging from the sublime (In Between Days) to the execrable (Bratz)—showed an uptick. Add to the gang of adolescent weirdos 16-year-old Juno MacGuff (Page), an acid-tongued Minnesotan who’s got a bun in the oven after doing it with her puppyish track-star pal, Bleeker (Cera).
That Juno makes it into the waiting room of an abortion clinic (albeit in a scene tarnished by casual racism) already puts the film light-years ahead of the self-fellating, deeply conservative Knocked Up. That she should leave the facility in a hot second and decide to give the kid up for adoption by two yuppies (Garner and Bateman) surprisingly doesn’t register as reactionary, thanks to the zingy script by Diablo Cody and fantastic performances all around. Page is particularly blessed with terrific lines, but Cody’s smart, acerbicly compassionate observations extend to all the female characters, including Garner’s upwardly neurotic mother-to-be and Allison Janney’s cranky, supportive stepmom. It’s all the more disappointing, then, that our intrepid young heroine should be so completely sold out in the last 15 minutes of this brisk film. Juno aggressively pushes its title character upon us as a nonconformist. The strategy doesn’t grate because the movie so successfully delivers on its promise—until our gal starts speaking lines that sound more like something from Love Story. The betrayal cuts deep. In the end, Juno is a breech birth.
Author: Melissa Anderson
Time Out New York Issue 636: December 6-12, 2007
User reviews of this film
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- Kristy V said...
- Posted on Feb 18 2008 07:49 This film ROCKS!!!! A movie that actually is funny, and stuck to the story it was thring to tell from the outset.
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- Welshy27 said...
- Posted on Feb 14 2008 19:16 Funny film, lots of laughs. light-hearted and deep at the same time...very clever. Great feel good movie, page will do well in the future!!
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- Michael said...
- Posted on Feb 14 2008 06:34 I've not seen the film, but do see that it's had you all talking about it. Gets you to think, is that not successful?
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- Tadhg Blommerde said...
- Posted on Feb 12 2008 13:32 This film isnt so much bad as it is just mediocre, over acted and full of dry humour which is more miss than hit, in the end the movie is just like Juno it tries so hard to be different that in the end it becomes the same as everyone else!
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- Matt Barker said...
- Posted on Feb 10 2008 19:08 Quite nice at the end. A couple of funny moments, but overall very annoying and empty. It feels very very engineered. I think that the people behind it knew exactly what they were doing. The soundtrack was put together not to add to the film, simply to make money off CD sales.
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- Danny from Queens said...
- Posted on Feb 07 2008 11:42 Entertaining movie that did what a movie is supposed to. Tell a story and keep you intereseted in it.
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- Lectra said...
- Posted on Feb 07 2008 10:31 I liked Juno, and furthermore I liked Knocked Up. While I support people's right to end a pregnancy, when someone is portrayed making the choice to keep it, (hence "pro-choice", there's more than 1) the movie is vilafied as conservative.
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- whatever and ever said...
- Posted on Feb 07 2008 10:09 It was decent and occasionally funny. Best thing it did was turn me on to Kimya Dawson's music. Anymore praise than that is a bit excessive and requires one rent "Ghost World." If being better than "Knocked Up" or some of the other juvey flicks that came out in '07 is a barometer of quality, then it's time to re-evaluate.
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- John Lennon said...
- Posted on Feb 06 2008 17:08 The thing that irritates me about this movie is the irrelevence Juno has toward the baby, until the end and how no one is angry with her. What sort of parent ignores the fact their child is pregnant? But the critics of the movie who say things such as "everyone too clever for their own good" has a slightly snobbish tone that ordinary people such as you and I are incapable of clever speech, althought there was no really grandly intelligent conversation in Juno.
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- Anne said...
- Posted on Jan 30 2008 11:11 Such an overpraised, overhyped movie. The occasional one-liner or zinger is fine, but this movie is nothing but an overload of self-consciously arch and/or snarky quips, delivered by characters most of whom are merely caricatures.
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- kimberly said...
- Posted on Jan 29 2008 14:37 Everyone keeps mentioning the "hipsters" and the damn "indie kids". I mean really, who are the pretentious ones here? Great movie, great cast, and great soundtrack. Take the movie for what it is and get over yourselves already.
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- James said...
- Posted on Jan 28 2008 19:59 wow you all suck, i enjoyed it
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- Ron O said...
- Posted on Jan 28 2008 16:13 Come on, this was a fun movie, really well written. She is NOT sold out at the end, no one I saw it with felt that way. Maybe your politics have covered your heart,
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- Max said...
- Posted on Jan 24 2008 18:00 When you look at the rest of the crap that's come out this year (especially Across the Universe - what a fucking letdown), Juno really is among one of the better movies. Seriously, stop whining about how hipster it is and think for your fucking self. Yeah, the music was kind of annoying. Yeah, some of the characters' reactions were pretty unrealistic. But anyone who thinks this was supposed to be some kind of be-all, end-all of how teens handle pregnancy is as stupid as these "hipsters" they hate so much. Juno isn't about every teen. It's about one teen. And you know what? I liked it. So you can cry me a goddamn river just because someone told you it was great and you were disappointed.
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- Poe said...
- Posted on Jan 23 2008 12:26 Great film! So many good movies lately .. lots of variety. Diablo Cody, thanks for providing us with an alternative to slasher violence and an alternative to movies that are waaay too lengthy.
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Cast & crew
Director: Jason Reitman
Cast: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, Allison Janney full cast
Rated: PG-13
Duration: 95 mins
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