Rite of Passage

Jason Reitman's Juno delivers the goods.

by Shaun Brady

TO WOMB IT MAY CONCERN: Michael Cera (right) feels Ellen Page's growing tummy. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Recommended

That out-of-focus Patti Smith LP lurking in the background as the title character engages in some aggressive slang on a hamburger-shaped telephone doesn't bode well; all signs point to a name-dropping exercise in hipper-than-thou irony.

But after several minutes full of smirky, self-satisfied one-liners and Wes Anderson compositions, Diablo Cody's screenplay and Jason Reitman's direction seem to settle down and engage with real emotions — even if they do come packaged in pop-culture references and clever wordplay.

Given that the subject here is teen pregnancy, Cody and Reitman walk a tightrope: On one side, the threat of After-School Special sentimentality and feel-good preachiness looms large. On the other, the combination of po-mo comedy and social issues can become smug and facile — the fate of Reitman's insufferable satire Thank You for Smoking.

What ultimately goes right here is that this isn't a film about teen pregnancy; it's a film about a teenager who becomes pregnant. Despite the fact that Juno (Ellen Page) chooses adoption over abortion, there's no agenda, pro-life or otherwise. The decision is obviously as impulsive as the conception, and results more from the terror of facing the clinic environment alone and scared than from ideology.

The repercussions of that decision propel Juno into, as she says, "dealing with things way beyond my maturity level." Finding — and living up to — the maturity that life demands is what's at issue in Juno, exemplified by would-be adoptive parents Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner. At first glance, he's the cool guy, with a home studio full of Gibsons and road stories about opening for the Melvins. She, on the other hand, is the uptight yuppie who keeps her man on a short leash.

Through her friendship with Bateman, which plays out in debates over the relative merits of the Stooges and Sonic Youth, or H.G. Lewis versus Dario Argento, Juno comes to find that there's a difference between appreciating the icons of your youth and clinging to them.

Besides the fact that their film seems to grow wiser as its characters do, Reitman and Cody are helped immeasurably by a cast that refuses to forsake sincerity. J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney, as Juno's ex-military father and dog-loving step-mom, navigate the land mines of their overwritten quirks to find real characters, and Michael Cera is perfectly awkward yet again as the accidental father. But the film's find is Page, who allows Juno's need for guidance to shine through her more apparent intelligence and wit. She doesn't let the fact that Juno is aware of being in over her head make the experience any less overwhelming.

(s_brady@citypaper.net)

Juno

Directed by Jason Reitman

A Fox Searchlight Pictures release