Juno
August 24, 2008 Leave a comment
Another big, important film I missed in theaters. I get a lot of those. Anyways, it mostly seemed to work: it put off a kind of indie slice-of-life flavor while still having a solid story at the core, and the characters were for the most part well-crafted and had some depth. The plot seemed at first like the ending was going to veer into territory I find personally rather offensive and distressing, but it saved itself at the last minute and I have to give props for successfully stringing me along. There’s very little to pick at in the story. The early consideration and dismissal of abortion seemed peculiar and a bit alarming, but I guess if you want to build a worthwhile story around unwanted pregnancy, you have to get the most pat resolution off the table early, so I can’t fault the choice from a dramatic perspective. The only other niggle I have is in Paulie’s characterization. For a major character, he’s surprisingly undefined, which somewhat hampers the idea of any sort of romance, or chemistry, involving him. It’s not clear what personal attributes of his are attractive (not that he’s repulsive, either: he just is not presented in a light suggesting that he might inspire strong emotion of any sort).