After seeing “Juno” I had sharp pains in my sides from laughing so hard … the film is an independent diamond in the rough, no doubt.
The comedic tones of the film are refreshing. You really get the feeling of simplicity because unlike so many other movies these days, “Juno” is not overdone. The setting takes place in a small town, and is based around the home and high school of the main character Juno.
The two most notable characters in Jason Reitman’s film were the young, offbeat Juno MacGuff and her best friend/love interest Paulie Bleeker, who knocks her up in a living room chair. Oh man, it gets better.
Juno is played by Ellen Page, a remarkable young actress up and coming in the Hollywood scene. You may remember her from “Hard Candy,” another independent film in which she poses as prey for an Internet predator and drastically switches roles. It was terrifically engaging and blood curdling – and completely the adverse to her role in “Juno.”
The dialogue in the movie is spectacular. A pregnant Juno (Page) carries on conversations of nothing but what I like to call “best friend jargon,” the kind where only you and your friends know what you’re talking about, with her friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby). The jargon could be a bit confusing at times, but that made it even more hilarious.
Paulie Bleeker, nicknamed Bleeker throughout the movie, is played by none other than Michael Cera from “Super Bad,” a comedy which needs no introduction. Cera takes on a similar role in “Juno,” portraying an awkward high school teenager who is perhaps even more believable than his previous character in “Super Bad.”
By awkward, I mean that the kid uses deodorant on his thighs so that when he runs track in his ever-trendy yellow wind shorts, he won’t get a friction rash. Cera pulled it off amazingly.
No one could have played a better Bleeker, that’s for sure.
Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman play the married couple looking to adopt Juno’s child. Garner does a decent job performing the role of a woman obsessed and wholly consumed with being a mom; the perfect, sweet-natured and overbearing hopeful mother. I guess I like her better in movies where she is funny and lighthearted, like “13 going on 30.”
No one outshines Page in “Juno.” She rules, and so does her hamburger phone (the writer, Diablo Cody couldn’t resist including it). She’s the perfect mix of humanity and hilarity in the movie. She simply fits.
I cannot tell you anymore about this Oscar-nominated film than this:
“It all started with a chair.”
Now go see it.

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