Movie Review - Juno

Been watching a lot of movies lately, mainly to keep my mind occupied (note to self...do not ever watch Blades of Glory again!) and last night decided to give the ever so hyped up Juno a shot. I'm not really one who goes into a film with preconceived notions of how it's supposed to be or believe a movie's hype and can usually watch any film with a fresh slate so I didn't turn it on with the expectation of being blown away.

Good thing. This movie is terribly mediocre. I don't get it. This movie won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay? Are you friggin' kidding me? I found the writing one of the weakest points of the film!

First of all...the whole chair metaphor. Did not make sense at all and seemed to be a ploy just to bookend the film. It ended with a chair? Huh?

Secondly...everyone's raving about the dialogue. Ooh...it's so witty! It's so funny! It's so quirky! How about it's so forced and pretentious? Now, I don't doubt that there are some teens who try to seem witty by talking like that, especially after watching an episode of Dawson's Creek or Gilmore Girls, but the words of Juno's character were just laughable. I guess that's my main beef. The lead character was just so annoying and condescending. I was definitely not a fan of her so I had a hard time rooting for her. Cynical and sarcastic characters like her are likable if they are funny but not if they're just using the words to differentiate themselves from the pack.

Ironically, I did find every other major character in the film very genuine and interesting. The father, the stepmother, the boyfriend, the best friend, and the adopting couple all seemed natural and real and had stand out scenes. I wonder why Juno got the shit end of the stick with the wannabe funny quips.

I initially had concerns that this film was a ripoff of a Korean film with a similar title but this movie explained why the character was given the name she has. But even that couldn't be done correctly. Juno is from Roman mythology, not Greek, and she was NOT the wife of Zeus.

Anyways...I did not really like this film and that's too bad because I thought it had potential and very good performances throughout. I just found the dialogue from Juno's character wretched and it really brought down the overall quality of the film.

EDIT - I do have to mention that there was one particular line spoken by Juno's dad that I really could relate to and appreciate. He said "In my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person will still think the sun shines out your ass. That's the kind of person that's worth sticking with." Words of wisdom. He is wise...