Review of Juno (2007) by Kevinh. — 05 Jan 2008

This morning I woke up early and went to The Savages matinee showing at my local art house theater with a random assortment of 20 anywheres age people, mostly older, and loved it. Then at 7 I went to the multiplex to see Juno at a packed house filled with recently pubescent kids with their dates that watched the film as they struggled in an attempt to touch each other.

I was expecting to love the film but was filled with the cognitive dissonance of paying ten dollars for a film that I was constantly battling with. A film that you like will suck you in so that your mental chatter stops leaving you to ponder what is going to happen next if you ponder anything other than the immediate sensations of what the actors are saying at the moment.

During the first 15-30 minutes of the film as the masses around me laughed at the punchlines that I interpreted were supposed to be funny and I sat with a blank stare I felt as alien as David Bowie's Spider's from Mars.

Thus began a hour and a half long inward debate of why I didn't think this movie was funny. What I found amusing was that the parts I laughed at were the parts that correlated with a relative silence throughout the crowd.

People laughed at the set design and general visuals. I thought man, Wes Anderson did a way better job at that and their just trying to mimic him. People laughed at the rapid fire dialogue of ellen page's character and I appreciated that what she was basically saying was funny but comedy, at least in modern day form just doesn't work at that speed.

What the character Juno says is in theory funny but compare when Juno talks and when Bateman or Cera's characters talk. Comedy comes from some basis in reality and no one but maybe a genius talks with the amount of elucidation that Juno does off the cuff.

The script is good in theory but there is too much there, if they slowed it down and unpacked some of Juno's dialogue the film would be much funnier. Either Reitman, Cody, or Page have no since of comic timing.

Also I should add I like to think that I wanted to like this movie, why else would I pay ten dollars to go see it. But the movie just tries so hard to be cool. And Cody's script seems to be trying so hard to prove that she's isn't just a dumb stripper.

It makes me think "we know you can write, just tone it down a notch." But maybe seeing the savages earlier threw me off since the two movies take such a different approach to a "tragedy" and turn it into humor.

To couple drama with comedy is a difficult thing to do and I just believe the savages pulled it off much better than juno. Come to think of it, knocked up pulled it off a lot better also. But this genius of knocked up is it's extemperaneous feel whereas Juno feels scripted throughout.