Juno

Every year around the award season a little-film-that-could tends to jump out of nowhere and generate a lot of Oscar buzz. Actually the buzz was heard earlier this year when the extremely low budget musical Once did surprisingly well. Now the talk of this year’s Sundance Festival and Toronto Festival, Juno, is poised to be the dark horse during the award season. Considering Americans’ aversion to musicals and any movie set in a foreign land, I bet Juno is going to have a much wider appeal to the American public than the little cult favorite Once.

It is actually a little deceptive to call Juno a mere comedy and not a musical comedy. The first half hour of the movie has so many songs on the background that it feels pretty much like a musical. Yes, the first half hour of this movie is quite painful to sit through. One has to get used to writer Diablo Cody’s stylized, rapid-fire dialogue that does not ring true and some very caricatured sideline characters. But after the first 30 minutes, the story hits its stride once all the main players are introduced and start to interact with each other.

At first glance, the premise for Juno is rather clichéd, but don’t let that fool you. Cody succeeds in adding new elements and twists to a very used-up concept. Sixteen-year-old Juno (played by Ellen Page) finds herself pregnant after having one-time sex with her best friend, Paulie (played by Michael Cera), a shy and sweet-natured track star. The movie is sort of like Knocked Up meets Little Miss Sunshine. Like Katherine Heigl’s character in Knocked Up, Juno is knocked up after a one time thing and has to face the consequences of her action; like the dysfunctional family in Little Miss Sunshine, Juno’s family at the beginning of the movie appears to have plenty of eccentric behavior. However, Cody combines the two movies’ ideas nicely together in Juno and makes it all afresh.

Once we pass all the unrealistic talk among the high school kids, Juno’s conversations with adults are much more believable. I don’t think Cody really knows the teenagers’ lingo, but she understands human relationships quite well. The witty banter in this movie doesn’t make me laugh out loud much, but the few quiet moments in this film are among the best of this year. Juno’s question to her dad about love and her realization that there is no perfect life touched me deeply.

Director Jason Reitman handles Cody’s material deftly. In a lesser hand, a movie about pregnancy and baby inevitably becomes over sentimental and melodramatic. Not Jason, he keeps those maudlin sentiments to the minimum and concentrates on Juno’s growth in this movie. There are also some beautiful shots in the movie. After a painful realization, Juno drives her car wildly on the street along side a slow moving train. She finally pulls to the side and the train still keeps the same pace. That shot says so much about her state of mind and life. At her age, she may think life moves at a much faster pace, but it isn’t necessarily so. Even when she stops, life still goes on.

Like that train shot, the casting in this film is also picture perfect. Ellen Page is the heart and soul of this movie and I believe she elevates good material into something superior. It is not easy to deliver fast dialogue with a sense of realism, but she pulls it off effortlessly. Her Juno is the coolest kid I would like to meet in high school with a sense of self and sometimes smart beyond her age, but at the same time she is still a kid and still believes in certain kind of fairy tale life. When that bubble bursts, it is heartbreaking to see the pain written all over her face. My favorite character actor, J.K. Simmons, plays her dad. He knows exactly when to act comedic and when to be serious. He can get more comic mileage out of a short witty line than so many professional stand-up comedians can get in an entire show. When he tells Juno about his unconditional love, he turns an easily corny scene into something truly beautiful and moving.

Please don’t walk out or dismiss this movie after the first half hour because I think more than likely you will be like me, totally won over by the character Juno, her loving family and Page’s phenomenal performance.