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Arts & Entertainment Guadalajara Film Review: Juno
Arts & Entertainment Guadalajara Film Review: Juno | Film Review: Juno |
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| Written by ALEX GESHEVA | |
| Saturday, 23 February 2008 | |
 ' ' - Photo By CR Files Juno (Ellen Page) is sixteen, clever, snarky and willfully eccentric. After a single sexual experiment with her best male friend Bleeker (Michael Cera), she is also pregnant. It may not seem like much of a plot, but, armed with an extremely talented cast of character actors, "Juno" continually surprises. The players in this drama are fully fleshed out and unique, the plot fast-paced, and scenes well chosen. Young viewers will sympathize. Older viewers will smile, and feel just a little bit closer to today's youth. Some are likely to react to the first twenty minutes or so of uber-cool, pseudo-folk music, an extremely generic suburban setting and a flood of pop culture and teen slang as one might react to nails scraped across a chalkboard. But, while the dialogue can be a bit too hip and self-consciously eloquent, it also has a compelling rhythm and is rich in startling and original imagery. Whether it's realistic or not may be a debate best left alone. After all, what would you choose to watch if faced with a choice between realistic but banal teen gab and the kind of short snappy retorts most of us manage only after hours of post-event rehearsal and line-tweaking in front of a mirror? "Juno" is an important movie, though calling it the best of the year is an exagerration. Cynics might say that Canadian and U.S. cultures overestimate high school, treating it a bit too much like the most dramatic coming-of-age battle life has to offer. North American audiences, therefore, might be just a bit too willingly drawn to young love without substance and to a high school happy ending over dark hard-hitting drama. At the same time, this is one of very few movies to treat teenagers and the problems they face with compassion and understanding, without resorting to stereotypes. "Juno" is well worth seeing, and not only because it is nominated for four Oscars (best film, actress, original screen play and director). Whether it wins or not, it's a rare fish: a funny, relaxing movie for the whole family without a single insipid or trite moment. The one-liners alone are worth it. |
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