JUNO

Few movies have I seen hyped this much. The Little Miss Sunshine of this movie season. I don't think so. I didn't like it at all and I've been asking myself why. All the critics loved it but I never listen to them. I don't want anybody even listening to me about this or any movie. Just opinion. I think one of the problems with me is that the movie trivialized a very important subject--teen pregnancy. And, the movie worked its message without those who are suppose to know better or at least have an idea, saying anything.

The characters were appealing, relatively speaking. This sixteen year old is the world's most clever bored teenager. She and her nerdy boyfriend decide sex is better than video games and she ends up pregnant. This is essentially all we know on the pregnancy issue. And then we go into this period of telling the parents who are at once accepting and clever in an odd sort of way. The Dad is a heating and air conditioning repair guy who is on occasion a common sense therapist even if he doesn't know it. The wife, step-mother of Juno, is equally clever, witty with the ready comments. She is a "nails" person, meaning she has a fingernail salon. (And, does nobody but me think it's a little odd that some writer came up with a comment from a teenage protester at the abortion clinic, who is Asian, that the fetus has fingernails). We doubt the step-mother is related to reality as everybody knows only the Vietnamese can run "nail" salons (at least in California). The step-mother verbally abuses a hospital technician who is trying to be empathic to Juno; and, we think that is funny. Give me a break.

The most empathic one to me and I'm sure that I'm the only one in the Universe who sees it this way is the Jason Bateman character. He is the husband of the adoptive mother character, Jennifer Garner. She is very good and for the story line, anal retentive to the max. Bateman goes from cool character to cad in milliseconds. A buddy of mine said he is merely a Peter Pan type, never growing up. Plus, this is the second time of late when I have seen men like Bateman castigated simply because they didn't want to be fathers. I actually read one critic's account that Bateman's character was a pedophile.

The book's author, on whom the story is based, says, not so, as written. She may be the best story with a movie of her life, i. e. stripper.

With a slight bit of psychobabble, I think one of the reasons that I feel so strongly is something that only recently happened to the son of a friend. And, this isn't subjective but fact as I have been fairly involved in the situation from afar but have read the official documents. My friend's son, a ne'the well 21 year old and his buddies who are all into dope and are having a party. At some point, a sixteen year old shows up. According to all involved, sex is way down the food chain. The uninvited female sixteen year old says she is 18, nobody thinks anything about it. At some point during the night when all the dope heads are passed out, she climbs into bed with the ne'the well son of my friend. They have sex. The girl goes home and when confronted by the stepfather concocts a story of rape, sex, all the related issues. My friend's son is jailed. The girl recants the story and admits it was her fault. I'm not making this up: makes no difference, this is the law, she was sixteen and under age. My Friend's son gets 3-6 years for being stupid.

Here's the basic scene with the Bateman character: Juno shows up unannounced while Bateman is home alone: they chat and rap about music, lots of symbolism going on. She shows up one more time and literally appeals physically to him for comfort. They hug. He awkwardly announces his plans to leave his wife. Why? Why at that point? We don't know but his character is forever trashed.


I especially disliked how the movie trivialized abortion. Planned Parenthood is the exact opposite of the clinic in the movie. Oh well, it is a movie and the great thing about movies is they can make anything happen they want. 2 parachutes.