Film Fetish: "Juno"

Juno (2007)
- directed by Jason Reitman


Witty acerbic high school junior, Juno, navigates the choppy waters of teenage pregnancy.

Every field of interest has them, miserable assholes. You hear about them from time to time even if you don't happen to be immersed in their world. For instance, I wouldn't consider myself an audiophile but I know enough about that space to know that it's riddled with sonic snobs; joyless, anal retentive zombies. Being in love with film as much as I am means I'm familiar with the cinematic variety. I can't stand them. I can't stand anyone who can't have a good time; people who are bored, people who are blasé, people who are hypercritical, etc. Those people are deaf, dumb and blind. Case in point, their assessment of Juno. The film took a good beating from that camp, in fact, it was pretty much trashed. Over and over I heard about how trite and mediocre it was, indie-by-numbers is the phrase I remember being bandied about. I have no idea what movie they were watching. I loooved Juno.

In some way I guess I could see what the cinephiles were trying to get at, but I feel they lost sight of what's really important, the heart of the film. It's a really great story; heartwarming, touching, funny and honest. It's not huge, not great, not all-encompassing, but it doesn't need to be... it still packs a punch. It's a small film that has all the right elements, that hits all the right notes. The star of the film, appropriately enough, is Ellen Page as Juno. Page along with Jennifer Garner and Allison Janney delivered phenomenal performances. As a whole I was pretty much bowled over by the strength of the cast, it's just something I wasn't really expecting. I was expecting the worst in a lot of ways, given what I had heard from the hardcores, but I was very pleasantly surprised. I think you might be too.


8/10 A great dramedy that's a little lite on the drama and very heavy on the comedy; this film's loaded with laughs. :D


DS333, surprised yet again.