And you know, I actually liked it a lot.
Some thoughts:
-Really glad I watched it at home with Sean instead of in a theater. We were a handpicked audience of people prepared to Get It in a lot of ways that Joe Microbrew Six-Pack wasn't going to, and I'm glad I didn't have to listen to audience reactions.
-Because it was actually a far more nuanced and subtle movie than it got credit for. Well, to us it was glaringly obvious, but maybe to other people, subtle. By which I mean:
-The first scene with the adoption lawyer? Blindingly exploitative. Sharklike maneuver to turn it into a closed adoption with no discussion? Immediate drawing up of paperwork? Icky. If I recall, some figured that was because Juno was so empowered, but I read it otherwise. WAY otherwise. Someone in a position of power taking advantage of someone else in crisis. And it seemed so obvious to me and Sean, that this situation was NOT a healthy one -- but that this is how it can play out, absolutely. And we took it as unflattering and accurate commentary. Apparently we are in the minority.
-Adoptive couple: creepy. I can't believe anyone thought Jennifer Garner's portrayal of Vanessa was compassionate; it was spot-on, absolutely, of a winched-tight certain-type-of-mommy, and very well and complexly played, but if anybody thinks this is what most adoptive mothers are like, yeesh. Perfect for the part though.
-I read a defense of Jason Bateman's character Mark's skeezy behaviors as midlife crisis stuff, oh, somewhere, but I am aghast that anyone would excuse the way Mark acted. Again, another reminder that the various parties in an adoption are NOT on equal footing, and that it is so easy for one to abuse power. Abuse of power can be a very subtle thing.
-Most reviews cited a "scary-smart" Juno. Well, I thought she was awesome, and wonderful, and intelligent, and quick-witted, but honey, if that's what you think scary-smart is, you must have spent high school hanging out in Tantopia. Juno reminded me of myself and all my friends in high school -- and the fact that she's being hailed as such an anomaly is, oh, I guess evidence of the patriarchy at work still. Women not funny. Women not smart. Anyway.
-It felt like, storyline notwithstanding, someone had made a movie about teenage Sean and teenage me. If we'd known each other. I really liked those characters. I believed everything they did, you know?
-I also thought Juno's parents were really well played. Yeah, they said and did some fucked up things -- like making teen pregnancy out to be worse than hard drug addiction (if somewhat jokingly), and sort of hustling things along with regard to the adoption. At the same time, they clearly loved Juno and didn't shame her. Bren (Allison Janney) was especially great -- she commented right at first about how Juno didn't know what she was getting into (with childbearing), which read a little bit like, this is going to be harder than you think, this adoption thing. And she was very aware of the power differential with Mark, and the inappropriateness of his behavior (and the playing-with-fire nature of Juno's).
They seemed very real, and very human.
-Even though I knew how it ended, right up through the last scene I couldn't help believing that Juno might decide to parent that baby. Obviously I am in the minority of Americans here, but I thought she would have made a kickass mom. I was bummed that she didn't feel equipped (and with mother abandonment issues, I can understand) and that society and her family offered no support for that decision. I would have liked to hang out with her at the park, you know?
-It was a good movie, but it wasn't a funny movie. It had funny parts, yes, but overall it was a deeply sad movie. I'm guessing most of the U.S. of A didn't get that, and didn't get its critique of the process (which may not have been there in the writing, from what I've heard of Diablo Cody, but that did make it into the directing). Did it end on a happy note? I don't think so. It ended on a wistful note. I couldn't help but see into the future for those two good kids, the dead spaces inside, the blotted-out memories here and there. Maybe they were fine; maybe they weren't. The movie ended before we got a chance to see. And the narrative arc was over a single year, four seasons, so I'm prepared to take the movie as it is. I forgive it its flaws, because even people who were enraged by it pointed out that it was indeed accurate -- it just stopped before a lot of the ugliness kicked in.
-Which is why the discussion that followed was such an important thing. I think it's possible to enjoy the movie for its humanity, to feel moved by it, and yet not come away thinking, "Wow, adoption is perfect! For everyone! Let's never change a thing!" In fact it kind of shocks me that anyone would see that as the take-home message, but...eh. It doesn't shock me that much. People like a quick and easy fix, and this is so much more complex.
-But in the end, I really liked the movie. And I almost cried through most of it. I cared about the people in it, believed they were real for two hours, couldn't quite wrap my head around the fact that the ending was a foregone conclusion. The only wish I have is for the rest of the world to wake up to the fact that life doesn't end where a movie does -- and that nothing, in the real world, needs to be a foregone conclusion. The problem isn't with the movie -- it's with us.
