I should preface this little bit (I'm hesitant to call it a "review" -- it's more the ramblings of a disgruntled hipster and wannabe academic): I am perpetually behind the entertainment times. When the 18 - 24 demographic collectively ejaculated onto
Garden State, Zach Braff's lovechild with himself, I missed the proverbial boat. I saw it a few months later when the hype had died down and didn't really see what all the fuss was about, barring, of course, the delightful soundtrack.
In December, when Diablo Cody's
Juno hit theaters, things played out similarly: indie soundtrack, quirky protagonist, collective internet boner, consequent ennui. Don't get me wrong --
Juno isn't a bad movie, but it hardly lives up to its own expectations, and that's a shame.
With a character as immediately likeable and clever as Juno, you would think that the writers could've come up with something more than a handful of one-liners. Fast-paced and legitimately funny dialogue is alright, but it's not enough to carry such a character-driven movie. Let's clear the air here: there's no plot to speak of. Juno gets knocked up by her knock-kneed boyfriend, has the minion, and then the credits roll. With no compelling narrative to push the movie along,
Juno (rightfully) depends on the strengths of the characters, which, by all accounts, should've been a workable game plan.
The thing about
Juno is that it has tons of potential. The characters are charming and endearing, but Cody never really takes them anywhere. It's like she conjured up Juno and Bleeker and Bren, the stepmom, using God knows what kind of arcane voodoo magic and then ran out of pickled skinks and bat wings. Instead of developing or evolving, they just make googly eyes at each other and run amok for two hours, like those brooms in
the Sorceror's Apprentice scene of
Fantasia.
For example, at one point, Juno is upset at her babydaddy for going to the prom with someone else. During the particularly nasty repartee, we're expected to feel angry at Bleeker; however, it falls flat because we haven't seen Michael Cera's skinny ass in the past 45 minutes. Instead, Juno's been too busy trying to fuck a married man who is interested in adopting her unborn child. I'll go ahead and tell you now -- that amounts to be a similarly promising but underdeveloped relationship.
The movie is really just a series of jarring interactions with no depth or emotion between painfully flat characters. It's hard to care about Bleeker when he's pushed to the side after about 10 minutes; it's equally hard to care when he goes to the prom with some other girl; and it's ultimately disappointing when Juno finds her true feelings and professes her love for him. They were pulled, presumably, out of her post-partum ass. The flat relationships would have been acceptable had they led to a more profound understanding of the titular character. They don't.
I'm not naive enough to think that all movies should be socially aware, but it's too bad that Juno is never presented with any sort of difficult choices to make. The decision to have the child (rather than abort it) is made in about 30 seconds. She chooses the baby's adoptive parents out of a wanted ad. Bleeker's first line, in reference to the pivotal coitus is, "I've been looking forward to this for a long time." THEN YOU HAD PLENTY OF TIME TO INVEST IN A CONDOM, YOU DUMB TWAT! Unfortunately,
Juno never addresses these issues and features very little inner conflict, and it's a weaker movie because of it. Sure, it kept things lighthearted, but it's not good storytelling and it hardly makes a compelling movie. Comedy and character development are hardly mutually exclusive, but
Juno seems to have missed that part of English 101.
That being said, it wasn't all bad. The movie features some nice, legitimately funny dialogue and all of the characters are likable, albeit boring. Like I said, it's not a bad movie, but it hardly scratches the surface of the potential to be found in such promising characters.
I was also impressed by some of the visual imagery that
Juno manages to provide. For those that don't know, Bleeker is a member of the school track team, and many scenes feature a group of gangly teens running in formation. More often than not, Bleeker's runs are interrupted by conversations with Juno. At one point, after rejecting that married guy's advances, Juno is seen in her car, all alone on the road, as a long train chugs endlessly alongside. Taken in conjunction, these two images create really poignant statements about the fleeting nature of time and biology and the humanity that can be found in the two. Again, it's not a particularly profound or well-explored theme, but it was certainly a nice touch in an otherwise underwhelming experience.
[Cross-posted from
mah vawx]
