Sometimes, when an episode of Gilmore Girls shows up on my TV (I’m not sure how they keep doing that, although I’m starting to suspect my wife might have something to do with it), I find it hard to focus on all the Stars Hollow drama. It’s not that Luke’s Diner doesn’t have enough gossip to go around: it’s just that the dialogue hogs all the attention. It seems the screenwriters are hijacking each piece of dialogue as means of showing off their own cleverness.
It’s like that with the movie Juno: the leading lady’s mouth produces a non-stop stream of well-written idioms and clever proclamations that seem uncomfortably out-of-place in a 16-year-old. It’s less like character development, and more like ventriloquism. While Juno’s motormouth provides the bulk of the levity in the movie, it certainly makes it a little harder to believe she is anything more than a deliberately constructed container for the screenwriter’s ideas.
“It’s just that you’re so cool and you don’t even try,” confesses Juno near the end of the movie, to a shuffling Paulie Bleeker. “Actually,” he stammers back, his voice squeaking a bit. “I try really hard.”
Like Bleeker, Juno is a movie caught awkwardly between earnestness and pretentiousness. The visual and sonic ideas are precious and artful, but its cleverness kind of clouds the sincerity. By the time Juno and Bleeker are playing their acoustic duet at the end of the show, it’s hard to tell if Juno has actually changed that much from the Stooges-loving 70s-punk-rock chick she claimed to be, or if it’s just another excuse to include a great song.
-
Best moment: The opening credits, a live/animated hybrid accompanied by a great folk song called “All I Want is You,” by a guy I’ve never heard of named Barry Loius Polisar.
Most questionable moment: The abundance of Napoleon Dynamite-isms. One of the very first spoken lines in the movie is this: “Jeez Banana, shut your friggin’ gob, okay?” I kept expecting Juno to bust out the “Vote for Pedro” t-shirt.
MORE POSTS FROM KEVAN GILBERT
- Movie Review: Melinda and Melinda
- Movie Review: Beowulf & Grendel
- Music Review: Radiohead, “In Rainbows”
- Feist concert review: The headliner
- Feist concert review: Opening act, Chad VanGaalen
Kevan Gilbert is a life-size replica of a 5'8" tall human being, and comes with several interchangeable outfits and a realistic haircut. In the daytime hours, Kevan works as Project Coordinator of Creative Technologies at Vancouver’s Union Gospel Mission, overseeing an online strategy that raises over $700,000 a year. When he’s not spending time with his beautiful wife Kendra in their hometown of Burnaby, BC, Kevan is available to meet, chat and collaborate.
I watched this movie too. Here is my English essay movie review:
I felt it was a brave, peppy sojourn along the straight, thin grey line separating acceptable from unacceptable. The movie’s fast forward dialogue and hyper-trendy terminology, as rampant as it was, seemed more to me like it held a hyperbolic irony and offered an abstract commentary on the life of your average someteen-year-old rather than being an abundance of dishonest confabulation.
It was the right spice for an otherwise serious and worrisome subject. With the exception of the occasional hamburger phone and one practical joke, everything depicted in this movie so was achingly average that it made the saliency of Juno’s quest for doing something different quite uplifting. I felt it was a true to life depiction of how reality can offer no forthright correct solution sometimes, just a vapid resonance from a vacant space that echos back your own question.
The juicy dialogue and the sonic mood of the movie was welcome release from dysfunctional social and family situations comprised of the most average people you could ever hope to find. This movie delivered positive messages on the comfort of friendship, of independent thought, of conducting ones self ethically (especially after a mistake), and the necessity of humour in life. From a moral standpoint, it was also semi-pro-life in nature, a rarely publicized position.
In conclusion, I thought highly of this movie, it was a truthful and simple approach to the complexity of what life offers. I’m not sure if I’ve ever watched such a heavy story told in a way that it left me feeling upbeat and glad for the trials and tribulations faced by the heroine.
You ruined this movie for me Kevan. I wish I had read Neil’s comment and not your posting. I watched the movie (illegally I guess, so it’s my fault it was ruined from the start) after I read your review and I kept getting caught up in “dishonest confabulation” (thanks neil). Maybe I wasn’t so ruined though. I didn’t mind it - it was alright.
My wife and I just saw Juno last night Kevan, and I have to say I agree with your assessment. The clever and quirky elements in dialogue, setting and characterization were wielded with brute force that nearly overpowered the excellent performances and (the surprisingly sad) core of the story. The movie seemed trapped between its attempts at realism and the desire to impress.
Anyway. The intro was indeed excellent, as was your brief review. And overall, while annoyed at the script writer’s desire to wow me with her wit by smashing her characters and their dialogue into quirky-hipster boxes, I did think the movie was pretty good.
First: I am not checking your site JUST because you said you checked mine- although maybe I am. But I have checked it before without said prompting.
Second: my name is an actual website. I like it. (http://www.smellsfunny.net/) i hope they don’t get me for plagarism, but it went with our previous morning chat.
Third: I JUST watched this movie so its funny you should mention it- unless this post has been up for a long time, and then you didn’t mention it, its just funny I should see your post. Whichever. I was trying to place my finger on what it was about Juno that seemed unnatural. I figured it couldn’t have been Ellen Page’s acting, cuz they almost gave her an oscar for it- so that generally indicates some level of skill right? err, rrrrright… But I definitely had trouble with that first line too! “friggin’ gob??” I believe was my reaction.
I still liked it. but i am glad someone put their finger on what it was that was, um, off… sort of smells funny, but I still like it- similar to film, although I am much more assured in my firm love for film, than I am for THIS film. Take it as is.
Fourth: everyone likes comments.
Heck, I agree. And you’re the first person I’ve found who feels the same.
Phew…