• Juno

Somewhere between the sharp satire of Election and the rich human comedy of You Can Count On Me lies Juno, a sardonic but ultimately compassionate story of a pregnant teenage girl who wants to give her baby up for adoption. Social misfit Juno (Ellen Page, Hard Candy, X-Men: The Last Stand) protects herself with a caustic wit, but when she gets pregnant by her friend Paulie (Michael Cera, Superbad), Juno finds herself unwilling to terminate the pregnancy. When she chooses a couple who place a classified ad looking to adopt, Juno gets drawn further into their lives than she anticipated.

But Juno is much more than its plot; the stylised dialogue (by screenwriter Diablo Cody) seems forced at first, but soon creates a richly textured world, greatly aided by superb performances by Page, Cera, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman as the prospective parents, and J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man) and Allison Janney as Juno's father and stepmother. Director Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking) deftly keeps the movie from slipping into easy, shallow sarcasm or foundering in sentimentality. The result is smarter and funnier than you might expect from the subject matter, and warmer and more touching than you might expect from the cocky attitude. Page's performance is deceptively simple; she never asks the audience to love her, yet she effortlessly carries a movie in which she's in almost every scene. That's star power. -- Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com
The word 'quirky' has become the quick and easy way to describe films such as Little Miss Sunshine and Lars and the Real Girl that straddle the lines between indie and studio films and comedy and drama. While Juno fits into that same category, this distinctive dramedy is in a class all its own. Ellen Page (Hard Candy) stars as Juno, a witty teenage girl whose boredom doesn't lead her to the mall. Instead, she makes a one-time trip into the arms of her best friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera, Superbad). When Juno discovers that she's pregnant, she's forced to grow up fast as she tries to find adoptive parents for her quickly growing child.

Juno might have a lot of strengths--Page's award-worthy performance, a pitch-perfect soundtrack, excellent direction from Jason Reitman--but it's the screenwriting debut of writer Cody Diablo that makes this such a winning film. Famous for her blog and her book Candy Girl - A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper, Diablo has a unique voice and an incredible ear for dialogue that led to her winning a Bafta and an Academy Award for Juno's script. But even the nearly perfect script wouldn't sound so good if it weren't for the talents of these actors, particularly Page. She won rave reviews for her first major role in Hard Candy, but this performance proves it wasn't a fluke. The rest of the cast, especially J.K. Simmons as Juno's dad, is just as worthy of attention. Junocontinues Cera's cinematic ascent after his success with the hit comedy Superbad, and his Arrested Development co-star Jason Bateman uses his dry delivery to great effect as a potential parent for Juno's baby.

Customer Rating:
Summary: a good film about the dilemmas facing teenage mothers
Comment: The dialogue in Juno was a bit unbelievable at times with teenagers talking so learnedly and confidently that it was hard to imagine they were teenagers finding their way in the world.Ellen Page - who played Juno - put in a very engaging and cativating performance as a pregnant 16 year old who wants to give her baby up for adoption.I didn't like the soundtrack to the film - the songs were either by simon and garfunkel or were a poor attempt to imitate them.But overall I would recommend this film to you if you want to see something
humorous and sensible with good family values in it and a strong sense of morality, as well as having a nice little love story thrown in.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A pregnant pause...
Comment: Juno was is pretty good, and is about a 16 year old girl getting pregnant and giving the baby up for adoption. The story is quite warm, often funny. An all round good indie film with a great alternative acoustic sound tracker.

But throughout the film, no-one seems to take the pregnancy seriously, and 16 yr old Juno is far too sassy, and her parents far too supportive.

If you like Garden State, then give this a try.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Juno, the freshest film going!
Comment: Ellen Page plays the quirky teenager Juno in this hip drama/comedy. She leads an incredibly strong cast (Michael Cera, Allison Janney, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman & J.K. Simmons) through the 9 months of her pregnancy when she then plans to give the baby up for adoption to the seemingly perfect parents, Garner & Bateman, however, not all goes as planned and it ends up being an emotional rollercoaster with lots of laughs along the way. The film cleverly addresses the issues of abortion and teenage pregnancy without giving the message that teen pregnancy is easy. The feeling of the film echoes that of Little Miss Sunshine but both are completely different stories.

-The actors are superb (Never before have I seen such an ensemble that delivers the whole script so realistically)
-The script is unbelievably original (Written by Diablo Cody, Academy Award Winner for this film!)
-The soundtrack is better than on any other film I have seen (apart from musicals) featuring songs from The Moldy Peaches, Kimya Dawson, The Kinks, Antsy Pants and Barry Louis Polisar.
-It delivers laughs and moments of sadness without being cheesy and also sends good messages for a young target audience
-It's not a chick flick

I would recommend it to anyone and everyone looking for something to cheer them up or make them smile! Buy it!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: I was bored, I tittered, I cringed, I cried. And cried. And cried
Comment: Initially I thought 'oh no, another piece of artsy fartsy tat', but then I got into it and started to appreciate the characters and their complimentary family structure, and the fact that her parents are accepting and supportive of her desicions. Everyone here has some depth to them yet very little actual detail is given, or needed. It's very good and worth buying, so stick it in your basket now!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Worth watching once but overrated
Comment: I wanted to watch this from the moment i saw the trailer but i never got to watch it at the cinema and so i bought the Dvd.I was really set to watch something fantastic and it was a decent film with some good acting and humour and a quirky script, but i felt a bit let down as it didn't live up to the hype, it wasn't amazing, just good and i probably won't watch it again for at least a year. I would still say give it a go though, especially if you liked little miss sunshine.

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