I Watch Films: Juno

 

Juno

Juno Magruff is 16 and pregnant. Deciding not to have an abortion she looks in the Pennysaver paper and finds Mark and Vanessa a couple looking to adopt. They are wealthy, living in a nicer town with a big house and seem good. Juno is standoffish to Paulie, classmate and father of the child, the off-hand way she treats him being a major part of the film.

Mark is a musician, though his playing days are past and he works on jingles. Juno is slightly taken back to find that all his stuff from bands and so on are restricted to one room. She and Mark hit it off, her coming over to watch films and listen to music, in a way that’s not creepy other than they don’t tell Vanessa. Juno and a friend run into Vanessa at a mall, where she is looking after some other children, with care and attention.

Mark decides he’s going to leave Vanessa, to Juno’s distress. She doesn’t tell Paulie when she goes into labour as he’s at a track meet, but he sense it anyway and joins her for the birth. Vanessa adopts the baby as a single mother with love and devotion. Juno and Paulie mend their differences and finish the film playing music together – the soundtrack being one of the other ways this film stylises itself.

Watch This: Warm comedy drama about growing up, maybe
Don’t Watch This: Smart-mouthed kids treat the important and the trivial with the same ironic manner