Jason
Reitman made a lot of people sit up and take notice with his
debut feature, Thank You for Smoking; and the son of
director Ivan Reitman stepped out of dad’s shadow with
the wistful but incisive Juno.
This unusual film combines a normally very serious subject
– unwanted teen pregnancy – with some wonderfully
smart humour. It’s actually a difficult film to pigeon-hole
into traditional genre categories. I guess “dark comedy”,
probably comes closest, but it’s also a neat social commentary
and even has some heart-warming (not to mention, heart-breaking)
moments.
The title character is Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page), a teenager
living in a small town. Very early in the piece, we discover
she’s pregnant, having been knocked up by sometime boyfriend
Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). This naturally throws her father
(J.K. Simmons) and step-mother (Allison Janney) for something
of a loop. After making the trip to the women’s health
clinic, Juno baulks, and decides she wants to go a different
way to deal with her unwanted bundle. She consults the local
classifieds and finds a couple looking for a child. Mark (Jason
Bateman) and Vanessa Loring (Jennifer Garner) seem like the
perfect solution. Mark is a composer of advertising jingles
– and a cool guy in Juno’s eyes. Vanessa desperately
wants a child, and they live in a nice house with nice furnishings
in a nice estate. But things aren’t always as they seem,
as the characters soon discover in varied ways.
Juno succeeds as a film because Reitman and writer
Diablo Cody really care about these characters. They’re
not perfect by any means – least of all the naïve
Juno – but they’re so grounded in real life and
so fabulously flawed, it’s really hard not to like them.
As with any comedy though, it’s the laughs that matter,
and Juno scores a lot more often than it misses. And
as with any good comedy, the laughs are the product of great
writing. There’s very little (if any) physical humour
here. Most of the jokes are courtesy of verbal exchanges between
the characters, and there are plenty of zingers in amongst them.
Thankfully, these mostly (though not entirely) avoid bodily
functions.
The film is set in a small Minnesota community (although actually
shot around Vancouver in Canada), and Reitman makes excellent
visual use of the changing of the seasons as Juno’s pregnancy
progresses. He also uses the juxtaposition of Juno’s modest
digs (complete with hamburger phone) and those of the Lorings
to good effect.
One
thing that’s particularly noticeable about this film (as
with Thank You for Smoking) is that Reitman has a keen
eye for what film snobs would describe as mise en scene, which
really simply means the way the scenes are constructed. Check
out the way he handles the recurring appearance of the high
school runners, or the scene in which Juno overeats at lunch.
Ellen Page as Juno makes the film. With her innocent face and
sharp tongue, she’s perfect in the role. More than that,
she actually makes you care about what’s happening to
her character as the film progresses. Jason Bateman and Jennifer
Garner are fine as the McMansion couple; even if Bateman’s
role is essentially to serve as a sounding board (pardon the
pun) for Page’s Juno. Michael Cera is becoming the dork-du-jour
and again slips easily into the role as Paulie. Among the real
surprises of Juno are two excellently understated performances
from J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney. Both actors are more recognisable
from their TV roles these days, but do a sterling job as Juno’s
concerned but not exactly flustered parents.
Juno is a ripping comedy from Reitman, who shows that
a quick wit and a warm heart can go hand in hand. To have made
two films like Thank You for Smoking and this film
certainly marks him as a directorial force to be reckoned with
in coming years. For now though, enjoy this agreeable and astute
film for what it is.
