Juno (2007)

Just a quick review today guys, sorry about that. I am rather busy but I will soon return to business as usual. I hope you enjoy this review. Juno is one of my all time favourites. Have a great weekend!

Juno 01 1024

A coming-of-age rom-com that focuses more on the heartbreak than the laughter. Juno’s relentless quirkiness, philosophical depth, and political shades are vastly entertaining, yet alarming and enclosing. But conversely, are a much welcomed and appreciated cinematic suffocation. Juno might appear to be harmless and vindicated on the surface…In retrospect, underneath its harmless exterior is a set of disturbing and harsh realities. Not everything about this unorthodox film is doom and gloom. The vibrant, bitter story is carried along by a light, rather breezy hilarity that’s closer to masking the fallacy of invisible innocence than outrightly distracting the viewer from it. Containing a script filled with oddities, performances that mar the line of morality, and innovative direction. Juno is a romantic comedy for past, present, and future generations to come.

juno1

Sometime in autumn, Juno (Page), a 16-year-old high school student living in Minnesota, discovers she is pregnant. The father is Paulie Bleeker (Cera), a fellow classmate and friend whom she spent one night in a big chair having sexual relations. Juno decides to have the unborn child aborted at a local clinic. But upon arriving, Juno has a sudden change of heart and decides to give birth and give the baby to a couple willing to adopt. After an extensive search, Juno finds the perfect parents in Mark (Bateman) and Vanessa (Garner). When all the papers are signed, Juno continues on with her schooling and life as planned, waiting to give birth. What she doesn’t realize is the physical and emotional toll the next 9 months will force upon her.

juno-001-500

Harnessing the charisma, honesty, and charming irregularities of its shy, solidified cast. Juno features Michael Cera, Ellen Page, and Jason Bateman as the funny, at times troubled leads. With Jennifer Garner, Alison Janney, and J.K Simmons supporting as they exude their usual comedic genius. By a wide margin, Page takes top spot for her performance as Juno. As the lead, Page is forced to deal with, not only a significant body change, but also an unprecedented, rapid ascent into maturity and she captures these facets in their entirety, effortlessly. Following up Page is Bateman who’s a close runner up. Showcasing a much more artistic and serious side to his usual hilarity. Bateman is incredible as a confused, helpless, deviant looking for an escape. Cera doesn’t diverge from his typical behaviour and believably falls for the girl, hard. As a unit, Juno’s ensemble couldn’t have performed any more faultless.

Juno screen3

Diablo Cody, writer of Juno, and director Jason Reitman give new life to a failing genre. With a unique sense of humour and circumstances that break the mould, Juno is cinematic evolution. Reitman and Cody up the ante by forging an encompassing situation that affects not only the typical protagonists in a rom-com. But residually, albeit indirectly dismantles anyone who’s connected. Reitman’s staggering ability to consume a story’s identity and regurgitate it to his viewers in a emotional, meaningful, visually spectacular way is worthy of unconditional appreciation. Juno is existing proof that you don’t need to break the bank or complicate the story to make a film that sticks in the viewers mind. Using what it has to make the viewer laugh, cry, and appreciate what is truly important, Juno is a modern classic.

juno-bleeker-juno-2098226-1024-576

Showing the intricacy in what is seemingly a simply event. Juno’s implicitly and adoring nature is worthy of the audiences heartfelt endearment and empathy.

Juno: 9 out of 10.

About Joseph@thecinemamonster

Aspiring writer who absolutely adores film and television. thecinemamonster.com

Posted on May 11, 2013, in Rom-Com and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. 10 Comments.

  1. Great review. One of my favorites as well. I must’ve seen it dozens of times when it came out.

  2. I agree with fernandorafael, a great review. Juno is such a great chillout film which doesn’t require too much thinking, and in the end just makes you smile:)

  3. Great post. This is one of only a few comedies i really enjoy watching.

  4. I wanted a hamburger phone so bad after seeing this movie, lol. For me, J.K. Simmons steals every scene he’s in. I loved him in this role.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 605 other followers

%d bloggers like this: