2007: Juno

Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007) 7/10

In 2002, the UNFPA conducted a study of births amongst women aged 15-19. The results were startling. Among all nations the United States resided in 58th, tied with the island states of the Maldives and Micronesia and the landlocked African republic of Lesotho with 53 of every 1000 recorded births being born by teenage girls.

Maintaining the highest place among western industrialized nations, the United States bore a teenage birth rate higher than some of the world's poorest nations including Kyrgrzstan (33), Tajikistan (25) and Myanmar (24). While the study itself contains flaws in its statistical methodology, such as the failure to recognize cultural and socio-economic factors as well as abortions, the research undertaken by the UNFPA does demonstrate the prolificacy of teenage sexual activity and pregnancy in the United States.

Yet, surprisingly, this subject has been a social taboo for Hollywood cinema. However in 2007, Hollywood produced not one, but two films detailing unplanned pregnancy. The first Judd Apatow's Knocked Up offered a comedic twist on a one-night stand gone awry, the second Jason Reitman's low-budget $2.5 million dollar sophomore effort Juno provided a risible examination of irreverent spunky teenage girl Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) becoming pregnant on her solitary sexual experience with her nerdy (boy)friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera).

Upon realizing she is pregnant, Juno journeys to the local abortion clinic. However, she is persuaded by a combination of a pro-life classmate's pleas, guilt and nerves to have the baby and give it up for adoption to a willing and respectable couple. Whilst scanning the local Pennysaver, Juno and her friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby) come across Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner). After breaking the news of her pregnancy to her father Mac (J.K Simmons) and stepmother Brenda (Allison Janney), Juno offers to give her baby to the affluent Lorings.

Juno's pregnancy subsequently shapes and effects the lives of the film's central characters. The nervy Paulie distances himself from Juno, despite her love for him; Vanessa's joy at receiving Juno's child is tempered by the teenager's sarcastic personality; and finally Juno fosters a bond with Vanessa's composer husband Mark, who has been forced to closet away his eclectic cultural tastes in order to blend into her conception of bourgeois domesticity.

Unlike Judd Apatow's Knocked Up, Juno offers an intelligent comic reading that purloins its style from some of cinema's more witty and inventive traditions. While Apatow's film interjects "stoner comedy" mannerisms and Animal House hijinks, Reitman's film adapted from first-time screenwriter Diablo Cody's hyper-kinetic script swerves through hefty dollops of alternative chic and screwball comedy. At times one wonders whether Reitman is attempting to replicate the witty postulations of Wes Anderson's Rushmore with its cultural name-dropping and Bohemian spirit: found in its animated credits, its nods to Sonic Youth, Patti Smith and Dario Argento and its utterly annoying indie-pop soundtrack by Kimya Dawson; the latter sounding like an irritating cutesy pastiche of the acoustic-folk offerings routinely shopped by The Shins, Feist and Peter, Bjorn and John.

Despite the catchy, quotable sweetness of Diablo Cody's script, the insular world Reitman elicits from her text feels miasmic and exceptional. The quirky hip language Juno regularly employs, whilst funny, lacks authenticity. Ellen Page's fantastic performance fills the character of Juno with exuberance and vitality, yet her teenage heroine is a sprightly uncommon fixture with her endless wise-cracking wit and hipster vibes. Rather, the character of Juno herself embodies both the strengths and weaknesses of Reitman's film and Cody's script, which feels self-congratulatory in its cleverness and referential capabilities.

From a high school devoid of social fissures to Juno's parents' lenient response to her pregnancy, the film appears to be detached from reality; instead offering an overly optimistic environment were personal happiness and goodness ultimately triumphs and past aberrations are quickly and easily forgotten. Perhaps the only truly genuine space in Juno is the Loring's upper-middle-class home, whose picaresque material perfection disguises their fractured relationship and the social demands that unconsciously shape their lives.

Interestingly, Reitman's film never addresses the external social pressures which may have influenced Juno's decision to lose her virginity to Bleeker. Furthermore by film's end, Juno's pregnancy appears to have had limited negative repercussions, as a sense of normalcy returns to all those involved. The messaged extracted from Juno is ultimately a mixed one. While Juno's pregnancy offers a vehicle for the realization and fostering of personal truths, her spontaneous decision to engage in unprotected sex has little or no drawbacks.

Juno is not forced to quit school or banished from her home; she is not financially stricken or mentally depleted. Her post-pregnancy life is perhaps even more beneficial due to the romantic affections she acquires. The real consequences of unplanned pregnancy are not evident in Juno, nor in Knocked Up. Instead the central protagonists of both films end up engaging in fuller, richer lives. The popularity of both films has demonstrated the general public's interest in the topic, yet it is an attraction connected to the comedic circumstances of the subject matter.

Featuring a strong collective cast including Cera, Bateman and the idiosyncratic Ellen Page, Juno is an easily likable and enjoyable comedy. Running about twenty minutes too long, the film is another unique and sardonic film from Jason Reitman, whose films flavorful lead performances and unorthodox plots tend to compensate for his lack of aesthetic panache.

While Juno easily betters Knocked Up, one wonders how engrossed audiences would be if either film focused on genuine pregnant teenagers from destitute and poorly educated homes, rather than college-educated working women with jobs at E! or pop-culture spouting teenagers from white surburbia?

* Juno is released through Fox Searchlight.

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque