Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Movie Review: Juno


Jim and I were lucky enough to pawn Meg off on my parents a few weeks back and enjoy a night to ourselves. Because we hadn’t done it in so long . . . and I know how much Jim LOVES it . . . I decided we should . . . see a movie. (LOL -- I guess that sentence could have ended a lot of ways, couldn’t it??)

I was nice enough to choose and activity of Jim’s liking . . . but the bossy wife that I am didn’t let him choose the movie. I had my heart set on “Juno” . . . so that is what we saw. (*Side note – Jim almost never really CARES which movie, he just likes going to see flicks in the theatre atmosphere.)

I had heard it was witty, quick, hilarious, and sweet. It had no actors that I knew of, but still it sounded intriguing. “Teenage girl gets pregnant and gives baby up for adoption” . . . seriously, what pregnant woman wouldn’t want to see that?

“Juno” lived up to all of my expectations. For once, a move WAS as witty, quick, hilarious, and sweet as it was promoted to be.

The movie is a “must see” my dear friends. You don’t have to rush out and see it at the theatre . . . I realize many of my blog readers are fellow moms, so I understand that struggle with finding time for a movie. You can rent it or watch it “on demand” when it is available . . . it has no special sound effects or visuals that are best seen on the big screen. So it doesn’t matter how you choose to view it – just make sure that you do it!

The movie tells the story of a young, 16 year-old girl and boy who find themselves pregnant after his ‘first time.’ Naturally, the entire cast of characters is stunned at this occurrence, and they spend the entire 100+ minutes finding charming and sarcastic ways to make light of this totally unexpected surprise. Juno, as played by Ellen Paige, is young and hip and really does MAKE the movie. The stuff she says will make you laugh out loud, and her heart and charm will make you cry. She can’t stand the idea of an abortion, so she decides to have the baby and give it up for adoption. The parents that Juno selects for her soon-to-be-born “uh oh” – played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman – are, of course, squeaky clean and quite hilarious in their own right. Throw in Juno’s whacky family, her fearless best friend, and the goofy ‘baby daddy’ and you’ve got a movie that is a REAL hit.

So, I give “Juno” as many stars as I can give it . . . 5/5, 10/10 . . .whatever the scale may be. It scores 100%.

I hope you and yours enjoy it as much as Jim and I did.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i was under the impression that Juno was directed by the same guy who directed Knocked Up because it's about an unexpected pregnancy, plus Michael Cera stars as Juno's boyfriend (he was one of the goofy kids from Superbad, a close relative of Knocked Up), but it turns out this is not the case