Juno: Indie as the New Mainstream
(** out of 5)
There's a scene toward the end of "Juno" when the title character tells the father of her child, "You're the coolest kid I know, and you don't even have to try." It's the closest this relentlessly vapid film comes to offering a truth, and when I think about what I'll take away from this film, among the most overrated I've ever seen, it won't be anything about the plot. Rather, it'll be the parade of half-written people straining to be cool, burying anything approaching genuine emotion beneath an endless barrage of contrived dialogue.
It's possible you'll watch this movie and think they captured today's high school teenager perfectly; the audience I saw it with certainly did. Many top-flight critics have embraced the blend of comedy with the heartfelt drama. If you embrace that, though, you have to embrace people who say things like, "Fuget, Thailand" instead of "Fuck it," or parents who name their child Liberty Bell, or an abortion receptionist who says they want to know "every score and every sore." This film falls over itself to stay clever with audience-approved indie flourishes, at the expense of what could have been a very perceptive drama.
It's becoming more and more apparent that these "indie" flourishes are every bit as formulaic as a Michael Bay blockbuster, just on a smaller scale. Rather than big-budget explosions, we get what one critic I read called "pre-packaged quirk": the snappy one-liners, the twee soundtrack, the false affectations that are supposed to make the characters "multi-dimensional." Remember the brother in "Little Miss Sunshine" (another movie I didn't like all that much)? His little gimmick was that he never spoke, a character detail arbitrarily included so we would get an inevitable scene near the end where he did speak, which would then be played as something insightful and climactic. But the jig was up long before that: Once the grandfather died and they snuck his corpse onto the van, the movie ceased to be a piercing portrait of a modern American family (what it was billed as) and settled into its role as a pretty funny slapstick comedy.
Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with funny slapstick comedies. But please don't tell me these movies are showing us something about the human condition when everyone in it does their best to stay away from real human interactions. It's all bullshit. Take away the cleverly-arranged jokes and the cute music and you realize how little these movies are actually saying; hell, "Superbad" has more to say about the teenage condition. And it's a shame, since "Juno"'s is a story that merits a wide audience. The movie promotes a message that deserves better than the treatment it receives.
Who can I blame for this? Not the actors, the only reason I didn't give this film one star. Even breakout star Ellen Page does her best to make her character tolerable, if not relatable. Director Jason Reitman already has made one good fim, the deft satire "Thank You For Smoking," so we know he's capable of turning out worthwhile material. I think the onus here is on screenwriter Diablo Cody, whose script appears to be written in aspiration of being quoted on Facebook walls and in conversations in shopping malls nationwide.
Juno is just a hipper version of a sitcom character, spouting off jokes with unerring accuracy and timing. Whether she's using her hamburger phone, talking to us via redundant voice-overs, name-dropping whatever bands are cool for disaffected teens to like these days (Mott the Hoople, evidently), or worst of all, using a healthy amount of black lingo as an attempt at irony, Juno keeps coming off as a joke factory rather than a vulnerable girl using humor as a defense mechanism or as the common language among her friends.
I read a young adult book earlier this year called "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist." Like Juno, the two protagonists are well-versed in sarcasm and pop culture references, but they can't (and don't) keep it up forever. When they're taken out of their comfort zones and forced to face genuine human moments head-on, they revert to the immature young adults they are, and the novel is all the more touching for it. Cody's screenplay doesn't allow Juno that luxury -- from start to finish, she stays "on." And eventually, she exhausted me.
I haven't even mentioned how the film essentially glosses over the complications of teenage pregnancy, or how so many of the secondary characters just fill pre-determined roles as the script requires. (The greatest offender is the ultrasound doctor, a woman whose sole function in this film is to get on a soapbox and generalize about Juno and her family, since I guess somebody has to).
So I pretty much hated this movie. Looking at Metacritic, where "Juno" is sporting a healthy 81 (the lowest score being a 58), it appears I'm in the distinct minority. There's also a prevailing feeling that anyone who resists the contrived charm of these movies must have his head in the clouds. I'm not buying it. There was an observant, witty, and affecting film to be made here, but this wasn't it.
Last week, I saw a film called "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." The script was probably half as long, since the main character is unable to speak, but it has twice as much to say than does "Juno." See that instead.
There's a scene toward the end of "Juno" when the title character tells the father of her child, "You're the coolest kid I know, and you don't even have to try." It's the closest this relentlessly vapid film comes to offering a truth, and when I think about what I'll take away from this film, among the most overrated I've ever seen, it won't be anything about the plot. Rather, it'll be the parade of half-written people straining to be cool, burying anything approaching genuine emotion beneath an endless barrage of contrived dialogue.
It's possible you'll watch this movie and think they captured today's high school teenager perfectly; the audience I saw it with certainly did. Many top-flight critics have embraced the blend of comedy with the heartfelt drama. If you embrace that, though, you have to embrace people who say things like, "Fuget, Thailand" instead of "Fuck it," or parents who name their child Liberty Bell, or an abortion receptionist who says they want to know "every score and every sore." This film falls over itself to stay clever with audience-approved indie flourishes, at the expense of what could have been a very perceptive drama.
It's becoming more and more apparent that these "indie" flourishes are every bit as formulaic as a Michael Bay blockbuster, just on a smaller scale. Rather than big-budget explosions, we get what one critic I read called "pre-packaged quirk": the snappy one-liners, the twee soundtrack, the false affectations that are supposed to make the characters "multi-dimensional." Remember the brother in "Little Miss Sunshine" (another movie I didn't like all that much)? His little gimmick was that he never spoke, a character detail arbitrarily included so we would get an inevitable scene near the end where he did speak, which would then be played as something insightful and climactic. But the jig was up long before that: Once the grandfather died and they snuck his corpse onto the van, the movie ceased to be a piercing portrait of a modern American family (what it was billed as) and settled into its role as a pretty funny slapstick comedy.
Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with funny slapstick comedies. But please don't tell me these movies are showing us something about the human condition when everyone in it does their best to stay away from real human interactions. It's all bullshit. Take away the cleverly-arranged jokes and the cute music and you realize how little these movies are actually saying; hell, "Superbad" has more to say about the teenage condition. And it's a shame, since "Juno"'s is a story that merits a wide audience. The movie promotes a message that deserves better than the treatment it receives.
Who can I blame for this? Not the actors, the only reason I didn't give this film one star. Even breakout star Ellen Page does her best to make her character tolerable, if not relatable. Director Jason Reitman already has made one good fim, the deft satire "Thank You For Smoking," so we know he's capable of turning out worthwhile material. I think the onus here is on screenwriter Diablo Cody, whose script appears to be written in aspiration of being quoted on Facebook walls and in conversations in shopping malls nationwide.
Juno is just a hipper version of a sitcom character, spouting off jokes with unerring accuracy and timing. Whether she's using her hamburger phone, talking to us via redundant voice-overs, name-dropping whatever bands are cool for disaffected teens to like these days (Mott the Hoople, evidently), or worst of all, using a healthy amount of black lingo as an attempt at irony, Juno keeps coming off as a joke factory rather than a vulnerable girl using humor as a defense mechanism or as the common language among her friends.
I read a young adult book earlier this year called "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist." Like Juno, the two protagonists are well-versed in sarcasm and pop culture references, but they can't (and don't) keep it up forever. When they're taken out of their comfort zones and forced to face genuine human moments head-on, they revert to the immature young adults they are, and the novel is all the more touching for it. Cody's screenplay doesn't allow Juno that luxury -- from start to finish, she stays "on." And eventually, she exhausted me.
I haven't even mentioned how the film essentially glosses over the complications of teenage pregnancy, or how so many of the secondary characters just fill pre-determined roles as the script requires. (The greatest offender is the ultrasound doctor, a woman whose sole function in this film is to get on a soapbox and generalize about Juno and her family, since I guess somebody has to).
So I pretty much hated this movie. Looking at Metacritic, where "Juno" is sporting a healthy 81 (the lowest score being a 58), it appears I'm in the distinct minority. There's also a prevailing feeling that anyone who resists the contrived charm of these movies must have his head in the clouds. I'm not buying it. There was an observant, witty, and affecting film to be made here, but this wasn't it.
Last week, I saw a film called "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." The script was probably half as long, since the main character is unable to speak, but it has twice as much to say than does "Juno." See that instead.
posted by Mike at 9:01 PM
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