It's fun to be preggers

Last week I wrote that Atonement was “one of the best films of the year.” I typed those words knowing that a week later I could type these: Juno is the best film of the year. And also the funniest. Most tender. Most hopeful. Best acted. Best written. It’s also the least pretentious film of the year, and it knows this, which is how it gets away with talking at our level, never above or below it.

Pitch-perfect in every conceivable direction, Juno tells a teen’s story using a teen’s own colorful language. It’s the most honest portrayal of teens and their long-suffering parents in a very long time. This isn’t one of those high school movies where the football jocks bully the script around. Here the jocks are reduced to hallway annoyances while the truly fascinating kids — yes, the eccentric losers — take center stage on their own terms. As for the parents, they don’t roll their eyes or raise their voice once, clichés that have needed debunking for some time.

Ellen Page is Juno MacGuff, a blue-Slurpee guzzling 16-year-old with a dime-store vocabulary gleaned from The Daily Show or anything with David Cross in it. She’s quick witted and fiercely intelligent, a teen whose mind is as sharp as her tongue. After an embarrassing and short sexual experience “in chair” with her boyfriend, Paulie Bleeker (Superbad’s Michael Cera), she becomes pregnant. She discovers this after chugging a jug of SunnyD and buying the 7-Eleven out of pregnancy tests, which she then flicks from the counter hoping to change the reading. “That ain’t no Etch-A-Sketch,” the clerk (Rainn Wilson in a cameo) tells her. “That’s one doodle that can’t be un-did, homeskillet.”

I will quote this movie ferociously because the lines are so worth it and because it will show you how bizarrely effective the language is at winning us over. And although the lines may sound cruel, they never are.

Preggo Juno contemplates the shmushmortion (Superbad reference), but after an interesting encounter with boysenberry condoms at the clinic, she opts to give the baby up for another A word — adoption. Juno tells her best friend: “You know I was thinking that I could just have this baby and like give it to someone that totally needs it like a woman with a bum ovary or a couple nice lesbos.”

In the local Penny Saver ads — next to “terriers, iguanas and used fitness equipment and stuff” — they find Vanessa and Mark Loring (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman), a young couple who want to adopt a child to call their own. “They sound awesome and all that’s missing from their lives is your bastard,” Juno’s best friend lovingly says. Indeed, they are awesome as Juno finds out in her first meeting with them, and Mark gets extra points because his old band opened for the Melvins. Juno tells them, “You should’ve gone to China, you know, because I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those T-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.” The way Vanessa listens and looks at Juno reveals she can’t have children and that it deeply hurts her, not so much her husband.

Garner, who I’ve never cared for much, plays this character to perfection. Later, in one long unbroken shot, she wraps her hands on Juno’s bulging belly waiting for a kick. Watch her face, the way it warps around several emotions — anticipation, doubt, sadness, intense joy — all in the space of about a single minute. That sequence is the pinnacle of her career thus far. Maybe it helps that she’s a new mom herself.

The entire film is filled with perfect performances. Consider J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney as the father and stepmother. These characters are usually mean and misunderstanding. Here they are tender and sweet, the supporting parents any teen would want on their side during an unwanted pregnancy. Michael Cera, who plays the boyfriend, a cross country runner who wears super-short running shorts and deodorant on his thighs throughout the picture, is as clueless as any teen would be in his situation and his childlike innocence serves Juno well.

I’m saving Ellen Page for last. She’s a godsend to Juno. She deserves an Oscar for this performance, and if the buzz continues at this pace she’ll have one to bring home in several months, which would make this the second trimester of her Oscar baby. Consider how hard her role is, though: she has to be funny, but never cruel; pregnant, yet completely innocent; a teen, yet also an adult. Page pulls it off, and believably too. It’s the best performance of the year.

The movie is written by blogster Diablo Cody, who previously worked as a stripper and phone sex operator before writing about her exploits on the Internet. I have a theory that, despite her history in the sex industry, she’s really a feminist and her magnum opus, and debut screenplay, is Juno. The director is wunderkind Jason Reitman, the son of Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman. His execution of Cody’s already-marvelous script proves he will be a comic legacy to film in the same vein as his father.

And one more praise: Juno’s music is terrific. Quirky acoustic rock from Kimya Dawson, The Moldy Peaches and others fill nearly every second of the picture, but it’s never overwhelming. Barry Louis Polisar’s opening number “All I Want is You” is the most appropriate song Juno could open with. A hint for other fans of the music: the soundtrack isn’t out yet, but you can find most of the songs individually on iTunes.

Go see Juno. Teens will eat it up. Adults might not get it as much, but they’ll recognize and appreciate the behavior if they were ever teens themselves. I’ve watched Juno five times and each time I pick up on new things, the way Juno says this or looks at that, a joke here and a reference there. It’s the best film of the year, and a treat to behold.