Juno

Michael Cera really seems to have the awkward-lovable-high-schooler market cornered right now and one wonders what teen comedies will do without him once he can no longer be passed off as sixteen. Which knowing Hollywood will be around the time his hair turns grey.

Juno is the tale of a young girl who, becoming pregnant in her teens, decides to carry to term and hand off to adoptive parents, but really it's essentially an unusual twist on a familiar format. It's a coming of age movie in which the titular character learns important lessons about life, love and responsibility.

But it's all okay, because this film has an ace up it's sleeve around which could be wrapped almost any premise you might care to name, with high degrees of success: It has spectacular dialogue. All the characters talk in a strange and unique unreal poetic fashion that is sharp and playful and hugely entertaining. It's also deftly delivered by a jaw dropping cast (Her step-mom and dad are played by Alison Janney and J. K. Simmons, two of my all time favourite actors). It's just close enough to normal language to be comfortable yet rhythmic and satisfying all the same. No one really talks this way, but it wasn't long before I began to wish that they did. It's a remarkable piece of work.

I'm a big fan of strong dialogue and thought I would be prepared to watch most anything in which it is this good, but a quick trip to the writers wikipedia page leads me to Christina Aguilera musical, Burlesque and daft Megan Fox vehicle, Jennifer's Body. (That's the vehicle that's daft. In that sentence at least.) I can't see me settling down to watch either of those anytime soon. I was actually quite surprised that the writer, one Diablo Cody wasn't somehow in cahoots with Bryan Fuller, who's various television works are the only other example of raw dialogue that come to mind that are quite so splendid.

Getting back to this film for a moment, it is perhaps a little too fond of it's own music, another track often kicking in the moment the last has ended and while much of it is to good effect (the last song in particular is very sweet) it is at times gratuitous. But this fairly minor quibble is the only real complaint I can lay at it's firm feet. A touch predictable perhaps, and maybe a little safe for it's own theme, her level headedness and pragmatism would I suspect be seen as flippancy in a less sympathetic character, it understands its own tropes well enough to lay them down in a way that satisfied rather than grated. It manages to show Juno maturing during it's course, learning without being truly trite, despite her initial independent nature, offbeat though it may be. She and indeed the rest of the characters are incredibly well painted, and the whole film has a warm and slightly unreal feeling, something that's complimented by almost every aspect is has available. It is very cohesive, which I like in a film.