Juno

Parent Cafe
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<p>Of course the movie is contrived. It’s a sitcom/romantic comedy featuring a central character who is more articulate and wittier than anyone who isn’t scriptwritten gets to be. For all its unconventionality, it’s fundamentally conventional, with fundamentally conventional structure and messages. And fundamentally conventional, recognizable stars. That’s how you get to be a really popular, crossover-hit indie movie.</p>

<p>If you were looking for Cries and Whispers, or even The Squid and the Whale, Juno is superficial pap. However, even those of us who adore Bergman and admire Baumbach can enjoy an intelligent, well-made sitcom now and then. On a scale of 1-to-Dante (or Shakespeare), this would rank pretty low. But so would everything else I’ve seen recently. At this point, I’ve seen most of the movies with significant Oscar nominations this year, and I haven’t enjoyed any as much as Juno. That’s not the only criterion for worth, but it’s not nothing. And compared to a real Disney movie – say, Enchanted – it might as well be Shakespeare.</p>

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<p>cgm:</p>

<p>Why do you find those lines stupid?</p>

<p>The first two really represent fundamental themes of the movie: Juno is engaged in a deeply meaningful process of bringing life into the world and deciding what’s the best way to nurture it, but she’s still 16, and all of her friends and the trappings of her life are 16, too. She’s both fundamentally competent and tremendously incompetent – and so are all the other 16-year-olds. And she is being totally selfless – in a highly moral way – and no one other than her parents, her best friend, and the less simpatico half of the adoptive couple seems to notice. There aren’t a lot of rewards for selflessness in the movie – but that line acknowledges the perfectly appropriate wishful thinking that there might be, somehow. Or that at least she would be recognized as the goddess she is.</p>

<p>Those themes are woven throughout the movie. The title itself is the same joke: “Juno” is way too large a name for this little, immature person who doesn’t “know what kind of girl I am yet.” Lots of things about her are too large: her name, her mouth, her ambition, her uterus. But . . . she kind of grows into all of them.</p>

<p>As for the “wholesome” line – isn’t that an attitude many teens would have? (And the develpment of the story forces her to think critically about that attitude. The line in question is delivered early, and would not be delivered near the end.)</p>

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<p>Yes, i think early on she reflected the way many slightly “alternative” kids would view what she sees society considering as “wholesome” which would mean a middleclass couple who probably go to church and have fairly moderate values, and worry too much about what the kid might eat and want to sanitize their environment etc etc. It’s hard to define but I can picture what she meant.</p>

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<p>JHS, very impressive explanation! CGM, you may not want to spend $ to see Juno in a theater … but I would encourage you to rent it when it comes out on DVD. You may find yourself very pleasantly surprised.</p>

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<p>I just remembered reading a brilliant paragraph about Juno (taken from a review by Rob Harvilla of a concert by Kimya Dawson, who dominates the soundtrack). Anyway, it manages to agree with everyone on this thread at once:</p>

<p>

[quote]
If you’ve not yet had the pleasure of Juno, the atrociously fey teen-pregnancy comedy currently barnstorming multiplexes and whooping up Oscar talk, by all means, have at it. It is sweet and heartwarming and winsome in its utter preposterousness. Just the fakest dialogue imaginable. Pop-culture-savvy sarcasm as suburban religion. Teenagers who talk like thirtysomething screenwriters. “Cool” parents who talk like teenage screenwriters. A 16-year-old heroine who actually says things like “Just looking to secure a hasty abortion!” and “Just dealing with things way outside my maturity level!” and (grits teeth) “Swear to blog!” Just appallingly cute cute cute CUTE CUTE. You’ll probably really like it. And there on the soundtrack, bobbing and weaving amid the obligatory “indie” blockbuster tunes (Belle & Sebastian, the Kinks), is Kimya Dawson, her primal, primitive odes to tire swings and vampires and roller coasters goosing us along, her wobbly voice and furtively chicken-scratched double-time guitar like a terrified little kid who just ditched the training wheels and is now somehow barreling down a mountain. Might not be an Oscar ceremony at all this year, of course, but if there is, it’s not at all inconceivable that Kimya could get her vastly uncomfortable Elliott Smith moment, onstage in front of millions with her mushroom-cloud shock of hair, her labret piercing, her enveloping arm tattoos and her striped socks, sweetly mumbling through “Anyone Else But You,” the pulverizingly twee power ballad from her old band, NYC “antifolk” heroes the Moldy Peaches, which provides Juno’s saccharine closing movement. This is a Garden State situation, with all the fearsome backlash that entails. (Hoo-doggie, Jim DeRogatis is ****ed.) My fianc</p>

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<p><em>yawn</em> ten characters</p>

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<p>Outvoted and off the island.</p>

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<p>Of course the dialog is wittier and more cogent than anything in real life. Why in the world would anyone pay nine-fifty to hear real teenagers talk? I can get that at home.</p>

<p>EDITED: The soundtrack was by far the worst part of the movie. When did bad singing backed up by ten-year-old folk-music guitar playing replace Jerry Goldsmith? Unfortunately, the bad singer with an acoustic guitar is going to be the musical trademark of the 00s.</p>

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<p>Isn’t that the case with all movies? Even oldies? People didn’t really talk the way Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell did in HIS GIRL FRIDAY.</p>

<p>When I was a teenager I wrote a play, that was performed, and the criticism was that teenagers didn’t really talk like that! But I was a teenager. So some do.</p>

<p>My kids are pretty witty. My S’s nickname in high school was Bueller, and I don’t think I need to say who was being referred to.</p>

<p>My favorite line is witty just for its total silliness. “Bleeker, your shorts are especially golden today.”</p>

<p>But maybe I just love the absurd.</p>

<p>BTW: My 83 year old mother loved it, and so did my hypercritical 75 year-old friend. I took her out to recover from chemo.</p>

<p>The S and his GF quote lines from the soundtrack at each other. I don’t think the soundtrack was pitched to adults.</p>

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<p>I have no interest in seeing the movie, sorry</p>

<p>Just aint gonna happen</p>

<p>I respect the reviews I have read that didn’t like the movie, and well, Barrons love for it only re-enforces my desire not to bother myself and spend my $</p>

<p>And even the reviews that LOVE the movie, just reading the reviews irratated me - some tried so hard to be ever so clever to match the movie</p>

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<p>Hmmm … do those who dislike Juno also dislike Napoleon Dynamite? </p>

<p>Just wondered if there might be any correlation…</p>

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<p>citygirlsmom: Juno is doing very well at the box office, and many of us enjoyed it. I don’t think we mind that you don’t want to see it. There are movies I don’t want to see. Sometimes I see them later and love them; sometimes I see them later and hate them, just as I thought I would. It’s just a movie.</p>

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<p>I liked both but Juno seemed much more complete as a story. ND was just a fun little diversion.
And CGM, I’m hurt. It’s hardly a Republican movie in the Die Hard Dirty Harry vein.</p>

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<p>Saw June the night before D went back to school. Loved it. (Loved Garden State, too.)</p>

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<p>loved Juno, ND and Garden State.</p>

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<p>I liked GS, too. Are we shallow, or do we just enjoy a fun flick?</p>

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<p>Well, when I don’t like something and others do I always think they have the right idea. It’s so much better to find what’s good in things and what works about them, not that I always do.</p>

<p>So, likers, like on!</p>

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<p>just saw the movie ‘Juno’ and I would like to offer my opinion.</p>

<p>The movie is about a 16 year old high school girl named Juno who gets pregnant, decides to keep the baby but give it up for adoption to a young couple who have not been able to have a baby of their own.</p>

<p>The main character is incredibly immature, irresponsible and unremorseful with regard to what she has done.</p>

<p>The boy who has impregnated her is a clueless dork who can barely put together a sentence without sounding like a ■■■■■■. Ah the perfect parents.</p>

<p>The movie sets a terrible example for teenage girls in America, or anywhere else!</p>

<p>The story fails on all levels as follows:</p>

<p>1) When Juno tells her parents that she is pregnant, they respond by saying
‘oh, lets make you a doctors appointment and get you started on prenatal vitamins’.
Are you kidding me?
They should have completely lost it and grounded her ass for years and made plans to have
her shipped off to a strict boarding school.
Or at least show some disappointment and given her a lecture about how she basically
ruined her life.</p>

<p>2) The parents do nothing to show that they feel this is a bad thing. Which it is by the way!
No 16 year old girl should get pregnant, not in this day and age.
They take her to get her ultrasound and smile and laugh when they see the baby on the screen.
Whatever!
When the ultrasound tech states some words of reality, the mother actually gets offended?
Give me a break. Hooray for that ultrasound tech. The mother needs a kick in the ass. It is her
lousy upbringing that led to this pregnancy.</p>

<p>3) The couple who decide to adopt the child are so not fit to be parents. On the surface
they seem pretty nice, but later we find out the husband is basically unemployed, stays at home
all day, dreams of becoming a rock star (no joke) and to top it all off wants to divorce his wife!
The wife is an emotional roller coaster who sees no reality except that she wants a baby, she wants a baby. . .</p>

<p>4) The movie does not touch on any of the negative aspects associated with teenage pregnancy, which include: high school dropout rates, unemployment, welfare mothers, malnurished babies, abuse, neglect, absent fathers, lack of child support, depression, loneliness, basically a life destroyed.
It is not a cute issue like the movie seems to imply.</p>

<p>5) Now I’m not going to start an ‘abortion vs pro-life’ debate here. But at bare minimum, the movie should have shown some of the negative aspects of teenage pregnancy and there are many! I won’t come out ans say Juno should have got an abortion. But I will say that she should have never gotten pregnant in the first place.
It’s about good parental upbringing, setting boundaries, rules, expectations, morals and more.</p>

<p>‘Juno’ just glorifies the whole teenage pregnancy issue, makes it seem cute, innocent, likeable, easily dealt with occurence in everyday life.</p>

<p>This approach is not only absurd and as far from reality as you can get, but I can say that it makes me think that the people who made the film are just as stupid and irresponsible as Juno herself.</p>

<p>This was a horrible movie and a terribly shameful example for young women in America.</p>

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<p>Wow, chefmom, that was a powerful review! Even as an adoptive mom, I see your point!</p>

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<p>Well, just shows how divided people are on this thread about values and how to view life.</p>

<p>Juno as a litmus test! Wow.</p>

<p>I see the movie completely differently. I think a lot of irony is used, but everyone definitely thinks it’s a bad thing except for the adoptive mother. It’s just not a movie that belabors the obvious, and it does show generosity toward mistakes.</p>