• Juno is sweet bliss indie cinema gold from the pen of Diablo Cody (Oscar winner in 2007 for Best Original Screenplay). It helped announce not only the talents of the young Cody (her first screenplay- and she was not yet 30 in 2007) but also the star Elliot Page (then Ellen Page) and Jason Reitman behind the camera.

It wears its indie badge proudly with the quirky details (drinking Sunny D in the opening, Tic-tac’s) folk music and hand drawn opening title sequence.

  • Juno chronicles four seasons (these feel rooted in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore) in the life of young Juno MacGuff as she gets pregnant. She has a hamburger phone, Thundercats references, and firing dialogue like “it’s probably just a food baby” and “he is the cheese to my macaroni.” Juno is infinitely witty- “you have your own room to your own house?” to Jason Bateman’s character. Page feels like the perfect match for Cody’s dialogue but everyone in the cast: Michael Cera, JK Simmons, the previously mentioned Bateman, Olivia Thirlby, Allison Janney and Jennifer Garner comes out of Juno smelling sweet. Page has great chemistry with both Cera and Bateman.
  • The Kimya Dawson music fits the wavelength of the film perfectly and Reitman should get credit for putting it all together. The cinema style is muted for the most part but there are some hilarious scenes from Reitman putting emphasis on the comic elements of Michael Cera’s Paulie Bleeker character.
  • Reitman does zoom out gloriously (above) in the final “Anyone Else But You” by the Moldy Peaches- hard to think of a more fitting and rewarding ending.
  • Recommend/ Highly Recommend border but ultimately missing out on the top 10 of 2007