This is the second feature from Jason Reitman, who gave us last year’s Thank You For Smoking. The unlikely premise of a comedy about an unwanted teen pregnancy is realised with verve to winning effect.Ellen Page is superb as the fast-talking, potty-mouthed teen of the title. Upon confirming that she’s pregnant, she decides she’s in no position to be a mother and initially opts for abortion, before going down the adoption route.
Backed by finely drawn characters, played to the realistic hilt by a classy cast including Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, JK Simmons and Allison Janney, Juno is a wickedly funny, yet touching, drama. No character is entirely what they seem to be, the audience’s initial judgments about each are swiftly demolished.
The dialogue, full of the writer’s family slang and killer lines, is full of sly winks and knowing observations; it helps if you’ve been known to rock...
This is made to be seen with a crowd (if the girls in the audience don’t fall hopelessly for Michael Cera’s Paulie Beeker, Juno’s geeky, love-struck boyfriend, then you’re in the cinema with a load of female zombies), and is simply one of the best coming of age films to come out of the US since Clueless.
This unexpected gem justly won the Best Film award at the Rome film festival.
See it.
Score: 9/10
Juno
IMDb
2 comments:
Okay, okay, enough already! We'll go and see it then. But I warn you... Compromise - this then Cloverfield?
Wilfully idiosyncratic.
And why have some cool rock chick as the central character who loves Iggy and Patti Smith - and then not have any of that stuff on the soundtrack but loads of insufferably fey shite like Belle & Sebastian and Moldy Peaches?
6/10.
Post a Comment