Film challenge.

Film challenge, May: Comedies. 

- Juno (2007; Dir. Jason Reitman). Acerbic sixteen-year-old Juno finds herself pregnant after a one-night stand with a friend. Initially considering an abortion (and after being scared away from that plan by a self-righteous classmate), she decides on giving her baby up for adoption instead. She even finds an ideal couple for that, the upscale Lorings. But as Juno will come to learn during nine wild months, life is often anything but ideal, and compromises must always be made just to get what’s really important. 

A beloved teen comedy (some would say ‘dramedy’) that holds up remarkably well a decade later. The breezy, matter-of-fact treatment of the subject of teen pregnancy is still astoundingly rare in US cinema (naturally, as many people have taken the movie to be a pro-life as a pro-choice argument. As presented in the film, I would say it’s less interested in a moral position as it’s in staying true to the characters themselves). The characters are generally well-developed and feel drawn from life, with all their flaws and virtues. 

One criticism, though: In this movie we meet a rather judgmental ultrasound technician (who gets chewed out by Juno’s stepmother) and an air-headed anti-abortion classmate of Juno. These two unpleasant characters are pretty much the only non-white women we see. The latter even speaks in stereotypically broken English. And not a single reviewer seems to have noticed this! 

What some reviewers have noticed, on the other hand, is the typical fans with misplaced sympathies —for example, those that over-identify with childlike adult Mark and condemn level-headed Vanessa for pointing out his flaws. But that says more about the audience than about the movie, truly. 

Now the soundtrack and the use of rotoscoping animation have been praised, quite fairly. The cast itself is —generally good (to be honest, I found it uneven, in particular Michael Cera’s typically bland performance). All in all, a pretty good cult favorite teen movie; though I must insist that it may benefit from a more critical take beyond the obvious hot-button issues (pregnancy and manchildren) and more focused on its larger social issues.