A MINI-REVIEW
BY DIANA DEKAJLO
We’ve all been channel surfing and come across a sappy Lifetime movie where a teenage runaway has just returned home after living on the streets for two weeks, after developing a cocaine addiction and acquiring a forty-something sugar-daddy, who’s also her dealer. And, of course, you tune in just as a badly composed score crescendos, and the once-wholesome, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fifteen-year-old turns, weepy eyed, to her single mother, and chokes out, “I’m pregnant.”
Well, thankfully, you won’t find any of this crap in Juno, a movie that follows Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page), an edgy, self-assured sixteen-year-old who calls penises “pork swords” and refers to Franklin Roosevelt as “the cute one, with polio.” It’s a breath of fresh air to watch a person on screen who is real. And when I say “real”, I mean, “I-don’t-care-what-you-think, poke-fun-at-herself, doesn’t-take-shit-from-anyone, if-you-don’t-like-me-you-can-fuck-off” –type of real.
In a movie that doesn’t have CGI effects, stuntmen, or stuff exploding every forty-five seconds, you get the chance to appreciate the wit and humor in a very cleverly written script. After walking out of the theater, you feel happily fulfilled, as if you’ve just made a new friend, or rather, a cast of new friends. From Juno’s parents, who’d rather she was “on hard drugs or expelled from school” rather than pregnant, to Paulie Bleecker, Juno’s awkward, lanky, Orange Tic-Tac-obsessed best friend and father of her child, you feel a genuine connection to everyone on screen.
Two ‘Pork Swords’ (or Thumbs, if you prefer) up for Juno.
Showing posts with label Juno. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Juno. Show all posts
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Katha Politt on JUNO
Those of you who have seen Juno might be interested in this piece from the Nation by columnist Katha Pollitt:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080121/pollitt
Let us know what you think of her piece!
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080121/pollitt
Let us know what you think of her piece!
Friday, February 8, 2008
Juno: Exceeding "Expectations"
My Thoughts on Juno
By Professor Patsy Cooper
Faculty Fellow
This is the year of the graphic novel turned movie, right? When we get to see a writer and filmmaker transform minimal dialogue and minimal illustrations into talking, moving pictures. By all accounts, the experiment—Persepolis—is a wonderful success. And I’m going to see it later this month with some 15 UHall residents (watch your email for the ticket announcement).
My problem is that I think I saw it last night with some other UHall residents. Only it was called Juno. And it is, indeed, great. But it wasn’t what I was expecting. I went into the theater knowing only that the movie is a hit. Nominated for Best Picture, in fact. That Ellen Page is some terrific up and coming actress. That Juno’s story is funny and sad and sweet. Mostly, I read any number of reviews that called the movie pro life and —thank God—a red light on unprotected sex. Or called it pro-choice movie and—it’s about time—a green light on the same subject. In any case, moviegoers are at least asked to see the humor in a pregnant sixteen-year-old making her way through the staring crowds of what seems to be a 3,000-kid high school. Funny, Juno may be. Unambiguous and uncontroversial it is not.
Yet, putting the story aside for the moment, for me the most remarkable thing about the movie was how it unfolded through dialogue that was as crisp and efficient as any comic book, sorry, graphic novel, I’ve read. So unexpected was it, that it actually threw me at first. I wondered where a movie could be going after an opening scene in which the clearly agitated Juno is swigging down Sunny D and openly requesting her third pregnancy test from an older, sarcastic, face-it-you’re-preggers, store clerk. Ditto for each scene. Not a word or facial expression is wasted. Each character and event obligingly advanced the plot in a critical way. And as amazing as Ellen Page is as she morphs from the opening line drawing illustrations (just to underscore my point) into walking, talking flesh and blood, she is in excellent company, especially with Allison Janney beside her.
As for the story, like the best of comic books, the movie delivers big time, though I honestly don’t know what all the fuss is about. Yes, Juno has pre-meditated, unprotected sex that is totally sanctioned by the movie. But she gets her comeuppance when she takes herself to a bizarre, Cohen Brothers-imagined abortion clinic, which is guarded by a sign-waving fool, who informs Juno that the fetus/child (take your pick, as the movie says) she’s carrying already has fingernails. Good thing her father and stepmother take the news of her pregnancy so well. And good thing there’s a wealthy couple just waiting to adopt the baby. Granted, the woman, Vanessa, seems a bit obsessed with her House Beautiful world, but she really wants a baby and, besides, she’s got a hip, musician husband to balance her out in Juno’s eyes, even if he is bridling a bit under all that domesticity. Clearly, it will all work out in the end.
Of course, you’d have to be downright stupid to view this as your backup plan.
But none of this is what ultimately delivers (no pun intended) the movie. Once I settled into its rhythm, and the idea of a sixteen-year-old offbeat and anti-cheerleader girl with a cheerleader best friend, so sure of herself that she and her nerdy boyfriend are truly cool, I thought I would just sit back and enjoy the ride. The strike for female liberation in the movie, it turns out, however, is not Juno’s rejection of life as a high school musical. Nor is it her deliberate plan to be “sexually active” or have an abortion or not have one. What’s actually liberating is Juno’s discovery that independence, that is, emotional independence, is neither hip nor cool if you can’t make a commitment to the people you believe in. What matters most is that you (and the tic tacs) show up. As does her father. Her stepmother. Bleecker. And, though the movie makes us wait just long enough to wonder if she will, so does Vanessa, who is revealed as a truly cool maternal soul, however uptight. Of course, by then, she’s sans hipster, since he turns out to be a real jerk.
By Professor Patsy Cooper
Faculty Fellow
This is the year of the graphic novel turned movie, right? When we get to see a writer and filmmaker transform minimal dialogue and minimal illustrations into talking, moving pictures. By all accounts, the experiment—Persepolis—is a wonderful success. And I’m going to see it later this month with some 15 UHall residents (watch your email for the ticket announcement).
My problem is that I think I saw it last night with some other UHall residents. Only it was called Juno. And it is, indeed, great. But it wasn’t what I was expecting. I went into the theater knowing only that the movie is a hit. Nominated for Best Picture, in fact. That Ellen Page is some terrific up and coming actress. That Juno’s story is funny and sad and sweet. Mostly, I read any number of reviews that called the movie pro life and —thank God—a red light on unprotected sex. Or called it pro-choice movie and—it’s about time—a green light on the same subject. In any case, moviegoers are at least asked to see the humor in a pregnant sixteen-year-old making her way through the staring crowds of what seems to be a 3,000-kid high school. Funny, Juno may be. Unambiguous and uncontroversial it is not.
Yet, putting the story aside for the moment, for me the most remarkable thing about the movie was how it unfolded through dialogue that was as crisp and efficient as any comic book, sorry, graphic novel, I’ve read. So unexpected was it, that it actually threw me at first. I wondered where a movie could be going after an opening scene in which the clearly agitated Juno is swigging down Sunny D and openly requesting her third pregnancy test from an older, sarcastic, face-it-you’re-preggers, store clerk. Ditto for each scene. Not a word or facial expression is wasted. Each character and event obligingly advanced the plot in a critical way. And as amazing as Ellen Page is as she morphs from the opening line drawing illustrations (just to underscore my point) into walking, talking flesh and blood, she is in excellent company, especially with Allison Janney beside her.
As for the story, like the best of comic books, the movie delivers big time, though I honestly don’t know what all the fuss is about. Yes, Juno has pre-meditated, unprotected sex that is totally sanctioned by the movie. But she gets her comeuppance when she takes herself to a bizarre, Cohen Brothers-imagined abortion clinic, which is guarded by a sign-waving fool, who informs Juno that the fetus/child (take your pick, as the movie says) she’s carrying already has fingernails. Good thing her father and stepmother take the news of her pregnancy so well. And good thing there’s a wealthy couple just waiting to adopt the baby. Granted, the woman, Vanessa, seems a bit obsessed with her House Beautiful world, but she really wants a baby and, besides, she’s got a hip, musician husband to balance her out in Juno’s eyes, even if he is bridling a bit under all that domesticity. Clearly, it will all work out in the end.
Of course, you’d have to be downright stupid to view this as your backup plan.
But none of this is what ultimately delivers (no pun intended) the movie. Once I settled into its rhythm, and the idea of a sixteen-year-old offbeat and anti-cheerleader girl with a cheerleader best friend, so sure of herself that she and her nerdy boyfriend are truly cool, I thought I would just sit back and enjoy the ride. The strike for female liberation in the movie, it turns out, however, is not Juno’s rejection of life as a high school musical. Nor is it her deliberate plan to be “sexually active” or have an abortion or not have one. What’s actually liberating is Juno’s discovery that independence, that is, emotional independence, is neither hip nor cool if you can’t make a commitment to the people you believe in. What matters most is that you (and the tic tacs) show up. As does her father. Her stepmother. Bleecker. And, though the movie makes us wait just long enough to wonder if she will, so does Vanessa, who is revealed as a truly cool maternal soul, however uptight. Of course, by then, she’s sans hipster, since he turns out to be a real jerk.
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