Juno
by Spencer Warren
Issue 105 -April 9, 2008

A pro-life film that is written and directed with consummate professionalism: Juno is a winner.

Juno MacGuff is an emotionally precocious 16 year old (played by the highly talented 20-year-old Ellen Page) living somewhere in suburbia. In the first scene, we see her getting way carried away with her boyfriend, whom she pertly calls by his surname, Bleeker (Michael Cera), whereupon she finds herself pregnant. Initially, she has only her hot girlfriend, Leah (Olivia Thirby) in whom to confide. Then she heads to a local abortion clinic, where she blurts out to the receptionist, “I’d like to procure a hasty abortion.”

But for all her many wisecracks and bons mots – and her moment of recklessness -- Juno is a sensitive, serious and mature teenager. She recoils at the prospect of having her baby murdered in the “family planning clinic” that, notably, is depicted in seedy terms – the bored receptionist sporting a ring in her nose, the pop magazines in the tacky reception area that resembles an insurance agency rather than a medical facility. And so she accepts responsibility for her enormous error. She confesses, outwardly calm but trembling inside, to her understanding father and stepmother, and states she will have the child, whom she then plans to place for adoption.

Before the 1960s, a film on this subject would have portrayed the young mother experiencing profound shame and guilt, not to mention the grim disapprobation of those around her. Her parents would have hustled her away months in advance to give birth in secret. Obviously, we live in different times – shame has been abolished in modern Hollywood -- so the film is comical, light-hearted and very charming in mood; light rock songs fill the soundtrack. But it is a tribute to the outstanding, Oscar-winning original screenplay by Diablo Cody, whose first script this is (at the age of 28), and to the subtlety of director Jason Reitman, that the seriousness of the situation comes across strongly, just beneath the surface. It also is a tribute to the amazing young actress, Ellen Page, who has no trouble fully carrying this movie, as if she were a young Katharine Hepburn in a coming of age role. She is both strong and vulnerable, reasoning and emotional, cocky and in need of a strong shoulder.

Still pregnant, Juno finds an apparently ideal, upscale couple who desperately want to adopt a baby. Showing her young years, she becomes rather too friendly with them, especially the composer-husband Mark (Jason Bateman). After all the business of decorating the new nursery, and as the special event nears, he gets cold feet, however. But his wife, Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) still very, very much wants to be a mother, and as a result Mark leaves her. Juno is crestfallen that the perfect couple for her baby has broken up, but, in a particularly well-directed sequence, she faces this crisis with impressive maturity and decides to stick with Vanessa. Some may see this as endorsing single parenthood, but I do not make too much of it because a sincere, loving, very attractive woman like Vanessa will have little trouble finding another, better father for her new child.

At the end, the now wiser Juno has worked out her issues with Bleeker. The final shot in this short, appealing film is the opposite of the first scene. Instead of being in improperly “close” proximity, Juno and Bleeker are singing “Anyone Else But You” to each other as they stand at either side of the steps outside his house. In a long take, the director slowly pulls back the camera, ending the film with the distance and subtlety that was a hallmark of an earlier, more mature style of filmmaking. He thus leaves the audience with a memorable, understated image of Juno’s moral catharsis: she has learned and grown up. And he has given us a worthwhile 90-minute moviegoing experience.

Spencer Warren is ConservativeBattleline On Line's media critic