As the writer’s strike continues to paralyse the Hollywood film industry, a film like Juno makes all too clear the foundational importance of a good screenplay. A director’s vision and a talented cast will of course determine a film’s final success, but it is the story, the dialogue, the textual foundation of a project that really matters.
Diablo Cody’s Bafta-winning debut, is refreshingly quirky and unconventional. Stories of unplanned teen-pregnancies have become weighted with unfortunately clichéd connotations: we anticipate a formulaic tale of a disadvantaged, irresponsible and neglected adolescent, presented through a tone of despairing disapproval. Cody transforms this framework of social commentary into a comedy about growing up; the pregnancy itself becomes a catalyst for an exploration into human relationships, the disappointments and complications of adult life, and the comedy inherent in the every day. The film is free from moralising judgements, and its 16-year old heroine attests to the intelligence and integrity of the young that is so often overlooked. Juno MacGuff is a highly articulate, confidently rebellious high-school student, who finds herself pregnant after losing her virginity to her best friend Paulie Bleeker. After hastily retreating from the prospect of an abortion, Juno decides to arrange an adoption for her unborn child. She is thrust into a world of adult experience and unexpected emotional complication. Her starkly ironic, sarcastic intelligence, imposed as protection from a disappointing world, is coupled with an emerging vulnerability and naivety, a gradual realisation of the formative nature of adult experience.
The film is founded upon wonderfully sarcastic humour, harmlessly amusing, and refreshingly honest, refusing any unnecessary solemnity or seriousness of tone, which would have been all too easy a trap to fall in to. Cody has created a series of quirky characters, all of whom unsettle expectations appropriate to their perceived situations. Paulie Bleeker, played by Arrested Development’s Michael Cera is a gentle, geeky athlete, whose unassuming affection for Juno is the mark of a loyal, and refreshingly genuine boy. Juno’s father Mac, an air-conditioning salesman, who could all too easily have become the beer-drinking, TV-watching, Homer Simpson stereotype, is in fact a wise, affectionate, and non-judgemental father, willing to support his daughter without question or criticism. Ellen Page (Hard Candy), has rightly received enormous praise for her performance as Juno. She brings the character a mixture of wry, superior confidence, and childish naivety; she shuns the superiority of adults, with an attitude of confident dismissal towards all words of advice. But beneath this exterior lies an idealistic perception of love and relationships that is waiting perilously to be undermined by a confrontation with reality. Her decision to give up the baby for adoption is initially a decision of necessity, but becomes an act of generosity as her relationship develops with the prospective parents. Mark (Arrested Development’s Jason Bateman) and Vanessa (Jennifer Garner), whose all-too perfect smiles, and expensive suburban house, overflowing with air-brushed photos of the couple in loving embraces, are a Yuppie, American Dream product, whose perceived perfection is immediately exposed as a desperate veneer of unhappy frustration. Mark, evidently terrified of the prospect of fatherhood, is unable to escape the fantasies of youth, tied to his ambition to become a rock-star (his present occupation as advertising-jingle composer is typical of the tragicomic touches that pervade the film). Vanessa is his neurotic, highly-strung wife, desperate for a child, and determined that everything should be perfect – a clear sign that in reality things are not. Mark and Vanessa’s already fragile relationship, is further complicated when Mark starts to fall for Juno’s charms – a mutual love of rock music draws them together, and it is at this point that Juno’s naivety starts to show. Step-mum Bren (Allison Janney) warns her of the inappropriateness of spending time with a married man, asserting that there are complications Juno is too young to understand. Mark too comes to realise how he has fooled himself about her maturity, and part of what makes the film so moving, and real, is the reminder that she has been forced to confront things far beyond her maturity.
Beneath its charming comic exterior, a sense of real fragility and emotion carries the film. It is about tolerance, understanding, failed ambition, and uncomfortable realisation. The lo-fi, indie soundtrack conjures an air of cool, hippy, offbeat eccentricity, appropriate for a cast of characters who continually surprise with their cutting witticisms, and unexpected acceptance of difficult situations. This is not a film about politics, or a cultural critique, but a story about people; it makes us laugh at absurdities, and emotively reminds us of the importance of human affection, and the integrity of the individual.
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