LIKE, DUDE, I'M HAVING YOUR BABY

Unwed mothers aren’t what they used to be, to judge by Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody’s Juno. Not for their heroine is the shame of the scarlet letter or the deadly gossip of provincial neighbors. Instead, the 16-year old Juno, played by the angel-faced Ellen Page as a cynical but levelheaded romantic, seeks out adoptive parents (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman), arranges the adoption, and then experiences the unexpected but hardly dramatic results. Juno isn’t ostracized, her parents express only concern, the topic of abortion is lightly touched on and just as lightly discarded, and then everyone lives happily ever after. Instead of treating the story as melodrama or as social commentary, director Reitman (son of Ivan, auteur of Ghostbusters) and writer Cody use Juno’s predicament for some lightweight comedy and some shallow character observation. It’s the easiest ninety-two minute childbirth I’ve ever experienced.

Juno’s greatest charm is its acting – specifically that of Juno and her family. Her parents are played by Allison Janney, clearly enjoying herself as a strangely glamorous lower-middle class mom, and J.K. Simmons, more familiar as the comically gruff Jonah Jameson of the Spiderman series. Cody gives Juno and her parents verbal slapstick that suggests Roseanne Barr meets Joseph Mankiewicz, without the former’s comic bitterness or the latter’s sustained pyrotechnics.

The other characters function as a chorus of sincerity; they do not get to make jokes but are the butt of them. This is particularly true of Juno’s boyfriend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). Paulie is adolescent ineptitude personified: geeky, seemingly friendless, and a terrycloth-headbanded fashion disaster. Cera underplays Paulie to the point of somnambulism – he barely reacts to the news of the pregnancy or to Juno’s declaration of love at the end of the film. Perhaps Paulie is a sullen teenager, perhaps the filmmakers’ didn’t think out his character very clearly - or maybe blinking is the latest in method acting.

A lack of nuance – exemplified by Juno having only one friend, and her lack of interaction with her fellow students at all – is the movie’s biggest problem. Her parents’ banter is entertaining, but their reaction to their daughter’s news is unbelievably blasé. And Juno herself isn’t very believable. Her arrangement of the adoption is a case in point: Juno reads three ads in the local pennysaver and discovers the perfect parents, two well-salaried yuppies who have it all. They're unlikely advertisers in the pennysaver, especially for an adoptive baby, and it's just as unlikely that their lawyer would show up with papers drawn up and ready for signing at the first meeting with Juno. At least Reitman and Cody do not condescend to their characters, which is refreshing in a movie about working class characters.

Juno does have one very distinctive feature – its production and costume design. From the opening credits, a mix of animation, line drawings and film, to the décor of Juno’s home and the appearance of her suburban neighborhood, the movie looks just as it should – slightly claustrophobic, a little tattered on the edges, and well loved.

If you are looking for more comic takes on unwed mothers, search out Miracle at Morgan’s Creek (Preston Sturges, 1944) or People Will Talk (Joseph Mankiewicz, 1951). Miracle - the hilarious tale of Trudy Kockenlocker, who knows she’s married but can’t remember the fella’s name, and her devoted but dimwitted beau Norval Jones - is one of Hollywood’s comedic peaks and has caused me to weep with laughter even after repeated viewings. People will Talk is Mankiewicz (All About Eve) as comic social commentator – he conjures up Cary Grant as a doctor who befriends an unwed mother and then has to deal with unpleasant consequences, namely rival professor Hume Cronyn. It’s a little dated as social commentary, but Grant is his usual expert self and is a great pleasure to watch.