I finally saw this film last night and I have to agree with most of what I’ve read here. I thought it was heartwarming and cute, and I’ve had songs from the soundtrack stuck in my head all morning.
I just wanted to add my take on the Mark/Juno dynamic:
I fully agree that Juno sees Mark as the adult and herself as the child. I don’t think she understands the ramifications of her actions leading up to the “I’m leaving my wife.” scene and I believe that this pivotal scene in the movie lends itself to Juno realizing that, as a result of her choices, she’s no longer “just a kid”. She obviously isn’t used to being treated like a woman, even though she’s shouldering a woman’s burden now. I think Jason Bateman portrayed perfectly the restless, overgrown hipster who sees Juno as a fun, young woman vs. the child she still feels like she is.
As a teen mom myself, I think this movie did a stunning job of portraying the limbo between child and young woman for someone in Juno’s situation.
Did I miss something? I don’t think this is spoiler material.
When Juno tells the yuppies that she liked their ad in the Penny Saver, Vanessa looks perplexed and says “Penny Saver?” but nothing else is ever done with it or comes from it. I would assume Vanessa knew they were looking to adopt, of course so the ad shouldn’t have been a surprise.
It wasn’t the existeance of the ad that bothered her but the location of the ad. Her husband was putting out the ads on the cheap, in free shoppers that were unlikely to generate many responses.
Sorry about that. Figured it was better to err on the side of caution with the spoiler tags. In another scene, Mark says, “I took out this ad and I figured it’d be months before someone responded but then this kid responds two weeks later…” so I think Mark likely took out the ad and Vanessa was kinda weirded out that he took it out in the Pennysaver.
Okay. Makes sense. Although I think free weeklies are the only place I’ve really noticed those sorts of ads anyway (aside from my old college newspaper). But then I’ve never been in the position to place or respond to such an ad so I haven’t been looking.
You know, I didn’t really like Juno. Like *Little Miss Sunshine *and Napoleon Dynamite its a simple story that really thrives on the quirkiness of it’s characters, but I don’t think Juno’s were quirky enough. Because of that I thought the dialog was contrived to make as many Junior High school catch phrases as possible and they just seemed forced. 2/3rd’s of the way into the movie I was left wondering where the movie even was, there’s really no conflict since Juno seems so cavalier about the child inside of her, her buddy relationship with Beeker is barely even a plot point until the end, her parents are supportive and she found a good family for her child. She complains about the looks and day to day crap she has to deal with at school, but other than one scene with the secretary and throw away scenes where she’s walking down the hall they didn’t really get into that aspect. There really is no conflict, this story is about a 16 year old girl sass mouthing her way through 9 months. Near the end her father asks June Bug whats the matter and she replies, “just out dealing with things way beyond my maturity level”, yet she doesn’t really seem to have to deal with much and she hasn’t seemed to have matured at all. I had to look hard to find a film review that I agreed with so I know I’m in the minority here, but I just don’t get the appeal of this paint by numbers Sundance effort.
I think that Vanessa was probably looking for something a bit more upscale–considering they are yuppies. I’d see ads in college published mags and in fliers all over my campus…of course, this was for egg donation, people who wanted an Ivy League educated egg from a woman who didn’t smoke, was 5’6 at least, blonde haired, blue eyed, the works. I’d assume Vanessa would want as much control over who she got in terms of a baby.
Did any other TC locals think the “PennySaver” might have originally been written as the City Pages (the free weekly that Diablo Cody used to write for)?
Just saw this last night. Liked it, loved the characters, enjoyed the dialog, really loved the music.
However, I felt it was lacking. For a film covering teen pregnancy, I would’ve expected something more than a light-hearted romantic comedy. I don’t think anyone watching this movie would gain any insight into the implications, ramifications, and day-to-day realities of pregnancy at 16. That so many teens will see this, I felt let down. YMMV.