"As boyfriends go, Paulie Bleeker is totally boss.He is the cheese to my macaroni. And I know people are supposed to fall in love before they reproduce, but....I don't think normalcy is really our style."
Juno Mcguff, the last monologue from the film "Juno".
"Juno" is simply the brightest film about a teenager I have ever, ever seen. Anyone with nominal conversational skills, don't watch this movie, because it can give you a frightful, sinking feeling in your stomach, which, in reality, will be a huge, massive attack of inferiority complex. And, anyone wishing a nice, little teen movie is up for a real surprise here. You know, I cannot even get serious about it yet, I am just so freaked-yanked-bombed out of it. It's one freaky big Martian hoopla put always sunnyside-up.
This movie transcends the limits and the very notion of teen movies in a dazzlingly positive way. This is the other side of films like "Elephant", "Paranoid Park", and "Election", which succeded to do the same, albeit "through the glass, darkly", so to speak. It is hard to imagine a teen movie being original; we are so accustomed to familiar scenes, facial expressions, boy groops, sorority sisters et al. Yet, "Juno" effortlessly moves out of that planet, and creates something exhilarating. And the first and foremost thing that works for this movie is it's dialogues.
The original screenplay for this film is written by Diablo Cody, a ravishing-looking ex-exotic-dancer-turned-scriptwriter. I have known her as one of the best bloggers out there before her script-writing days; her "Pussy Ranch" blog was something worth going back again and again. She brings her own, straight-for-the-punch humor to the dialogues. This film is really about dialogues. Take them out, change them an iota, and the movie will be gone. American films, well, a certain type of American films, have already taken the craft of "American" script-writting to a very high level. This film is the culmination of all those fabulous dialogues by Woody Allen, Quentin Tarantino, the Marx brothers, and many more. This is the first of her scripts to be filmed, and she has already won an Oscar. We will wait anxiously for her next efforts, but I have a sinking feeling that hers will be the case of Charles Dickens and "Pickwick Papers". Let us hope she will prove us wrong.
The medium of film is simply brutal towards people who overdo a thing on screen. If the director of this film (Jason Reitman) had tried to show some of his "craft" to prove his virtuoso talents, this film would have been a spectacular ruin. The credit of the film-maker as far as this film is concerned lies in the fact that he continuously underplays the role of a director. The camera remains neutral, unnoticed, and lets the dialogues do their work, take their own life and do their tap-dances. Also, this film has one of the finest title sequences I have seen in a long time.
Oh, and now, let's talk about the acting. Ellen Page is FRIGHTENINGLY BRILLIANT as "Juno". She is the next great thing in Hollywood for me, and I am ready to put my pants on fire to prove that. She, and Julia Stiles, are the next two women to watch for; a bit like Dianne Keaton and Mia Farrow. I am not going to describe even the smallest parts of this film, as it has become kind of a sacred entity for me, but I can tell you this. Ellen Page is as inevitable in this film as Marlon Brando was in "Last Tango in Paris". And that's the highest compliment I ever pay to any actor. J.K Simmons is perfect as Juno's father, Mac Mcguff. Jennifer Garner as Venessa delivers a surprisingly genuine performance. See this movie only to watch Eleen Page again and again. She looks like the "Actor's Studio for All Teen-age-Movie Acting Aspirants". She is encyclopediac in her role.
The music works brilliantly, working as a major 'misce-en-scene'. The film is so bright that it will hurt somewhere inside, if you still can feel a thing. Thankfully, this is not a 'Catharsis' movie, and it diligently avoids all the emotional pitfalls conceivable in such a film. "I'm Not There" was for me the best movie of 2007, but this is the most surprising movie of last year. I cannot help but give it a five. And, it should have won more Oscars. At least Ellen Page should have.
BAIDURYA CHAKRABARTI
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