Juno

After 16-year-old Juno MacGuff (Elliot Page) decides to have sex for the first time with her nearly-boyfriend, Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), she unfortunately falls pregnant. While initially going for an abortion, she later decides the best thing to do is give the child up for adoption to seemingly-perfect couple, Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) and Mark Loring (Jason Bateman).

Ever since people first started talking about it, Juno has been labelled as this year’s ‘little movie that could’. Thankfully, like last year’s equivalent Little Miss Sunshine it doesn’t crumble under the weight of such expectation and is a triumph on it’s own terms. Indeed, maybe next year movies of similar stature will be referred to as ‘this year’s Juno’.

Following a recent trend of comedies, Juno's plot concerns unplanned pregnancy. While both Judd Apatow’s standout Knocked Up and Adrienne Shelley’s impressive Waitress were successful and critically approved, Juno generated more coverage than the two combined with Oscar tips being directed at scriptwriter Diablo Cody and teen lead Elliot Page. For those unfamiliar, Cody is the stripper-come-blogger-come-Hollywood writer you have been hearing about and Page played the small cute girl from X-Men 3.

For a first-time movie scribe, Cody’s work is extremely admirable. Fresh, funny and bursting with heart, Juno is generously peppered with sharp dialogue and witty ‘that’s so true’ observations. Presumably based on her experiences, Cody reflects life with an honest emotion while simultaneously making us laugh for a variety of reasons. One minute we’re quietly sniggering at subtle lines like “they call me the cautionary whale” and the next we’re taken aback by crude quips such as “it makes his junk smell like pie”.

As for the 19-year-old Canadian in the titular role, Page blows us away. Combining with Cody’s words to spunky effect, Page’s Juno is an offbeat teen who values truth, often goes against conformity (there are three separate scenes where she literally walks against the crowd) and possesses a self-awareness usually reserved for Kevin Williamson. While X-Men 3 and Hard Candy got him noticed, Juno is the movie that announces Page as someone worth watching from here out.

Joining him, ‘man on a role’ Cera gives us a likeably-timid teen, Cera’s fellow Arrested Development star Bateman exhibits hithertoo unknown depths as the cool unready-father and Bateman’s The Kingdom co-star Garner (it seems every cast member has worked together at some stage) plays a mixture of familiar and against-type as the controlling mother-in-waiting. As the parents in this nightmare scenario, Spider-man’s JK Simmons and The West Wing’s Allison Janney are gruff-yet-cuddly and stern-yet-caring respectively as they give lessons in how to steal scenes.

While most of the pre-release buzz surrounded star Page, writer Cody and a massive amount of orange Tic-Tacs (this will become clear when you see the movie), the end result is a fine team effort that, thankfully, lives up to all the hype.