Review of Juno (2007) by Frances H — 14 Jun 2016

I really thought this film was bright and funny with an excellent cast and brilliant script, but I can see where the "Juno effect" comes in. The film really makes light of the situation of a 16 year old girl getting pregnant.

Unlike Knocked Up, where the couple involved are adults and end up loving and caring for their child, even the couple who agree to adopt the baby end up in divorce, so that this child has only one parent even before it is born.

The film seems to teenagers like a light-hearted love story--get pregnant to a boy and have him love you. What is played down to an almost blasé level is this poor girl giving up her child as though it has less affect on her than not going to the junior prom, and ditto for the boy, when in reality, the decision to have an abortion or give a baby up for adoption is something that haunts at least the mother for a lifetime of agony in uncertainty of whether you did the right thing or not, heartbreak in having to give up a child that you carried in your body, always wondering if that child is happy, or even knows he was adopted, if his parents treat him well or if he curses you everyday because you just gave him away like something unloved and unwanted.

The whole teen pregnancy subject is treated so lightly here, one can see how impressionable teens might misunderstand, and that is the real problem here.