Smart, witty: "Juno" cleverly depicts real life

The characters in the new American comedy Juno feel like people that you and I know. That is the greatest tribute I can give a film about the happenings of everyday people.

Most recent teenage coming-of-age films have depicted teenage characters as sex-crazed and far too mature for their actual age. Even the much-beloved 2007 comedy Superbad was a movie in which the three main characters knew nothing about real love, but a great deal about sex.

This is what makes Juno so unique in modern film. Though the title character, played by the remarkable Ellen Page, speaks in sarcastic, advanced phrases for a 16-year-old, her actions indicate she knows little about the ways of the world, a fact repeated by her stepmother early in the movie.

Juno’s smart dialogue is not another example of a teenager who knows too much for her age, but rather the result of an intelligent script by Diablo Cody, who is making her screenwriting debut.

The movie opens with 16-year-old Juno having to come to terms with the consequences of an awkward true-to-life, initial sexual encounter in a recliner with her best friend, Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). After finding out that “fetuses have fingernails,” Juno decides not to have an abortion. Instead, she finds a couple looking to adopt in the Pennysaver sales newspaper. Juno meets the couple, Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) and decides that she wants them to adopt the baby.

As the plot twists and turns, Juno learns more than she bargains for about life, as she experiences feelings of love and regret through the pregnancy. Will Juno actually surrender the child to the adoptive parents? Will Juno tell Paulie Bleeker she has real feelings for him? Will another man intervene in Juno’s life first?

Juno is only director Jason Reitman’s second feature film, following the successful 2006 film Thank You for Smoking. In Juno, Reitman focuses extensively on facial camera close-ups to convey the characters’ mixed emotions. Rarely does the sophisticated dialogue reflect the exact feelings of each character, with the exception of the uninhibited Juno. Therefore, the actors and the director must convey the emotion through their expressions for the movie to succeed. This impressive camerawork enables the viewer to know that everything is complicated below the surface.

The acting in Juno is fantastic as well. Page’s sharp wit could win her an Academy Award. She is particularly great in her interaction with her father (J.K. Simmons) and her stepmother (Allison Janney), who Juno clearly loves but seldom respects. For example, she sarcastically tells her stepmother to “Dream big!” after her stepmother tells her that her goal is to get two dogs when Juno moves out of the house. Cera also excels as the awkward father-to-be, in a role similar to the one he cultivated on Arrested Development and in Superbad. Bateman and Garner are just as good in parts that are considerably more difficult to play. Neither character is able to rant like Juno or bumble like Paulie. They have to seem like a happy married couple dealing with their own private issues, much like many American couples do everyday. If Mark and Vanessa do not seem real, the movie fails, regardless of Page and Cera’s excellence.

However, it is Juno’s relationship with Paulie that makes the movie much more than merely effective. Neither character understands feelings or sex, but they know they feel something, and they know they did something. While Juno is able to form coherent thoughts about virtually any topic, including punk music, she is unable to tell Paulie, the one person she can usually tell anything to, exactly how she feels about him. The complicated relationship between Mark and Vanessa shows that the inability to express love does not necessarily dissipate even as people grow older.

This is why Juno is a special film. While almost anyone can pontificate on something, such as baseball or politics, few people can truly talk about love. It is something that can only be expressed through actions. Fortunately for the viewer, the actions of Juno and the other characters are a thrill to experience. How Juno handles problems in the film is how real 16-year-olds would handle their problems. Because of this everyday realism, Juno is a phenomenal film.