It’s difficult, I suppose, to write about a film like Juno without doing so through political spectacles. But some of the conversations so far have revealed the problems with doing so – in short, the spectacles make you see funny.
Is Juno a “pro-life” movie? Some would say no, since you know, Juno has a choice whether or not to abort and the choice is never a matter for argument and pro-lifers are really just totally and completely about taking away the choice, so if a work of art shows a woman making a legally protected choice not to abort, then what you have there is a pro-choice movie.
Of course what’s expressed in that condensed version of some comments I’ve read is a very limited understanding of what “pro-life” means – a solely political one. Take Ann Hulbert in Slate:
She isn’t moved by thoughts of the embryo’s hallowed rights, however, but by a sense of her own autonomy. And for her, that doesn’t mean a right to privacy, or to protect her body (“a fat suit I can’t take off,” she calls it at one point). Juno is driven by the chance to make her own unconventional choice.
Well, I have to agree with Ross Douthat:
Well … sort of. I would say that Juno goes further than Knocked Up in presenting abortion as a plausible choice for a girl in the heroine’s position, and doesn’t go nearly so far as Apatow’s movie in making the advocates of abortion look like heartless creeps. And Hulburt’s right that Juno McGuff’s decision to bear her child to term is an act of personal autonomy that’s of a piece with her broader nonconformity, and that deliberately sets her apart from the conformist (and judgmental) world of parents and teachers and too-chatty ultrasound technicians.
However, the crucial decision isn’t cast as a Dead Poets Society-style validation of nonconformity for nonconformity’s sake; it’s cast as a case where being a nonconformist happens to be the right thing to be. And while Juno may not be moved by thoughts of her embryo’s “hallowed rights,” exactly, she certainly seems to be moved by the unremitting grossness of the abortion clinic (complete with a pathetic-seeming girl receptionist who tells her that they need to know about “every sore and every score”) – and more importantly, by the declaration, from a pro-life Asian classmate keeping a lonely vigil outside the clinic, that her child-to-be “already has fingernails.” (Careful viewers will note that while Juno sits in the clinic, filling out paperwork, the camera zooms in on the fingernails of the other people in the waiting room.) Just as the movie as a whole charms viewers (and particularly critics) with Juno’s hyper-articulate tomboy cynicism, but ultimately asks us to admire the idealism at work under the cynical shell, so too does the scene at the abortion clinic invite the audience to giggle at the Asian girl’s pro-life idealism (“all babies want to get borned,” is her lisping chant), while simultaneously giving her the sincere line that makes all the difference in Juno’s decision.
If it could be easily labeled, it wouldn’t be art. It would be agitprop and no one would argue about it except to wonder why PBS is funding it.
(The screenwriter herself has self-identififed as pro-choice, btw)
(I’m also not saying that it’s not intriguing and culturally important that a movie in which a girl confronts the humanity of her unborn child is currently – #1 at the box office – it is all of that. But the movie is not political.)
Most of you probably know the plot already:
(rest of post below the jump to head off Thanks for spoiling it! complaints)
Juno, a wisecracking, indie-type 16-year old, gets pregnant by a boy who is a close friend, but whom she is not really dating. She initially decides to abort, but then, affected by her schoolmate’s sole vigil outside an abortion clinic, a girl who shouts, in desperation, before Juno enteres the clinic, “Your baby has fingernails!” – she doesn’t. She decides to carry the baby, she finds a couple to adopt, and complications ensue.
But it calmed down from that point. Juno’s dialogue remains almost at that level, but it’s fairly true to her character, although heightened from what it would be in real life, but that’s what art does. I did feel as if there might have been more subtle exploration of her smart-mouthing as a defense mechanism. though.
The acting – and casting – was uniformly great. Ellen Page as Juno is getting all the kudos, but really, every actor did a great job (Jennifer Garner being a couple of notches below everyone else, but still okay.) The two standouts for me were Michael Cera (of Arrested Development) as Paulie Bleeker, the father of the baby. He was almost perfect. Understated, suppressing concern and emotion, but clear-sighted and in a way heartbreaking. Jason Bateman (of, er…Arrested Development) was a revelation as the prospective adoptive dad. He’s skeevy, but your awareness of said skeeviness grows slowly – although if you’re looking in the first scene, you can see it there already in his forced enthusiasm.
Most of the conversation about this movie has concerned the decision whether or not to abort. There’s more to it than, that, though.
*The movie is essentially about Juno, a girl who feigns maturity, but really isn’t. She does stupid things and she acts foolishly, driven by her own unrecognized yearning. Once her decision to carry the baby to term and place him/her for adoption is made, the focus shifts to her relationship with the couple, particularly the Jason Bateman character – a frustrated musician who writes commercial jingles. It’s clear that in him she’s drawn to what she likes about Paulie, but is pushing aside for now – primarily music and interesting conversation. She keeps popping over to the house and gradually we see, to our horror, that the husband is digging her presence too, that the wife is being characterized by him (and at times by Juno) as a killjoy. This is not overplayed at all, but what I saw in that dynamic was a real sense of Juno’s immaturity and sense of lostness – I don’t know what kind of girl I am.
To me, the most poignant scene in the film occurs after Juno has given birth, beginning with the scene of Paulie winning his track meet, surveying the crowd, not seeing Juno there, and knowing, just from that, what was up, continuing to his appearance at the hospital, still in his track clothes, and lying down beside her in the hospital bed where he simple stares ahead and she, quietly, lets loose a steady stream of tears. The camera focuses on their feet – Juno’s clad in her goofy striped socks and Paulie’s in his dirty track shoes – kids. Kids who played a grown-up game, managed to make a decision that brought happiness to another person and left them bittersweet, but – I think it’s clear – whole. Not damaged, destroyed or less, but somehow more.
*There’s mature stuff in the film – the sex is not explicit, but obviously there. There’s a brief scene of a sex-ed teacher slipping a condom on a banana. Some vulgarity. So use your judgment.
*The movie is full of fantastic character detail. There are no types in this film, but a bunch of real people bumping up against each other. (The exception being Rainn Wilson’s drug store clerk at the beginning – unfortunate writing and acting there.)
*I was intrigued by the fact that there was no birth control talk in this movie. Why hadn’t Juno and Paulie used birth control? We don’t know. It’s never, ever brought up, nor is it said, “We should have…” I am not sure what I thought of that – seems that it would be a topic of conversation at some point. Perhaps it just wasn’t important – the screenwriter seems to have a very “What’s done is done…move on” sensibility, so maybe that’s part of it.
*A great deal of this movie was about the cluelessness of adults. Adults, take note. (Except Juno’s parents, who are definitely not clueless and respond to her situation with understanding and compassion, but not rose-colored glasses. I think what I mean is that there is this whole world of teens out there doing their thing, doing what they want, with adults either not knowing what they’re doing (recall the mocking refrain of “sexually active”) or so at sea in their own lives they don’t have the resources to actually deal with the realities of the kids’ lives. Is that better?)
*Somewhere online, I read a commentary on the movie that criticized, for lack of a better word, the sociological and moral landscape of the film. Juno doesn’t have access to firm moral principles in making her decision, nor does she rest her decision on them. Her family, her relationships – they’re all kind of a mess. Wouldn’t it be better, it was suggested, if Juno had been seen reasoning her way to this decision based on clear moral principles?
No, because then we’re back to agitprop. In art you tell a story – and the more specific the story, the better the art. This film was about this girl in this particular situation with these families in this cultural landscape who deals with these problems in this way. And in the end, she grows up a little. We can hope she grows up a lot, but we can’t be certain. But we can sure hope.
Amanda Shaw in First Things today on the movie.
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