Funny Ha-Ha and Funny Sad

As Juno has been out for more than two weeks, and everyone has raved about Ellen Page (and rightfully so), I needed to take a different angle with my review. The first time I saw Juno, it was opening weekend and I was in a packed theater with two of my friends. We all laughed hysterically, and Amy cried. The second time I saw Juno, it was two days before Christmas with my parents in a less-than-crowded theater. This gave me more time to ponder, and to let my personal life bleed into my thinking. ...

If you’re going to be knocked up at 16 - a condition I certainly wouldn’t advocate - you couldn’t ask for better parents than Juno’s Mac and Brenda MacGuff.

When Juno (Ellen Page) tells her father and stepmother (the great character actors J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney) she’s in the family way, director Jason Reitman’s comedy goes from a bordering-on-tiresome cool to a bracingly sweet slice of life. Until then, the quips in Diablo Cody’s script - “this is one doodle that can’t be un-did, home skillet;” “Phuket Thailand!” - come fast but perhaps too furious. After fingernails and flavored condoms deter Juno’s plans to “procure a hasty abortion,” she sits Dad and Brenda down for the baby news - and the film's heart shows amid its hipster swagger.

Mac and Brenda don’t swoop in and offer to raise the child. They’re funny (“I didn’t know he had it in him!”) but disappointed, repeatedly referring to Juno as “irresponsible.” Yet they love her and stick up for her - Mac insists he accompany Juno to meet the adoptive parents she located in a pennysaver and, in a particularly biting exchange, Bren stares down an uncouth woman in authority: “What do you do?” “I’m a ultrasound technician.” “Well, I’m a nail technician, so why don’t we stick to what we both know.”

Juno knows she’s not parent material, but she's found people who are: Vanessa and Mark Loring (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman), McMansion yuppies about an hour away from the MacGuffs’ working-class Minnesota world. At first, we mock Vanessa, a brunette Martha Stewart, while digging the overgrown adolescent Mark. But Garner aches as a woman pained by an inability to be a mother, no more so than when Vanessa and Mark discuss the color to paint the baby’s room. Garner cuts through the ludicrous cheesecake/custard talk with sad eyes and tremulous voice.

Reitman previously directed the snarky 2005 satire Thank You for Smoking. In Juno Reitman, and Cody, let humanity emerge through the sarcasm. An encounter between Vanessa and Juno at the mall produces one of the movie’s loveliest moments, and Reitman allows the camera to linger on Garner and Page as the scene fades to black.

Page finds such complexity and openness underneath the wise-cracking Juno. Whether by tugging at an unfamiliar skirt when she visits the Lorings or looking searchingly at baby daddy and best friend (Superbad’s Michael Cera) in spite of herself, Page helps us see past the flippancy to find a soulful young girl who really wants to make the best of a bad situation. Juno’s also a very real pregnant teen, scorned by outsiders and uncomfortable with being a “planet.” Cera is adorable in his awkwardness, wanting to do something but clueless about how to behave.

But as endearing as Paulie is, and as well as he and Juno complement each other, the relationship bothered me. A year ago, my 15-year-old mentoree was in a situation similar to Juno’s. Her ending was more realistic - and a lot less feel-good. What would she think if she were to watch this movie today? Juno should have ended along with the titular character’s pregnancy, not in a summer coda. Cody and Reitman have tried to tie too big a bow on their cinematic gift.

The birth and its resulting emotions have poignancy, and we see Juno’s truth when she does break down, curled in the fetal position. Our tears fall just before that, though, thanks to dear old Dad: “Someday, you’ll be here on your own terms.” Is it too late to nominate Mac MacGuff for Father of the Year?