olivia thirlby

Juno MacGuff (Page) has always been a free spirit, looking at life in her own unique way but two months after she sleeps the schools best long distance runner Paulie Bleeker (Cera) her life turns upside down. She is pregnant. Knowing that at sixteen she wouldn’t be able to give the child the life she deserves, Juno and her best friend Leah (Thirlby) look for prospective adoptive parents and formulate a plan before she tells her Dad (Simmons) and stepmother (Janney) about her situation.
Every couple of years a small budget, character driven quirky comedy comes along and becomes an instant cinematic gem, ‘Juno’ is one of those movies.
After making a real splash with ‘Thank You for Smoking’ in 2005, Ivan Reitman’s son Jason continues to ride that wave with his second feature length movie, ‘Juno’. The story of a sixteen year old girl who becomes pregnant might not sound like the most original premise for a movie but Reitman and his creative team’s approach to character development and story make this one of those rare low budget, character driven gems.
A movie like this survives on its characters and ‘Juno’ creates one that you instantly take to and care about. These are not your typical Hollywood version of high school students, filled with beautiful people who look like they are in their late twenties who don’t really know about the real world or real problems. Juno, Bleeker and Leah are your average, slightly quirky sixteen year olds who see life as an adventure and come up with their own unique methods of dealing with adult problems. Juno and Leah tackle the problem head on, looking in the local paper for prospective adoptive parents for her unborn child, while Bleeker just throws himself into his running, distancing himself from the problem, even though everyone at school is talking about it and Juno is getting bigger. This added realism, injected with some truly quirky realisations and development that just endear you to the characters even more. Add to this some equally quirky adult characters that have just as many problems as the kids and you have a movie that you will connect with more than anything Hollywood usually turns out.

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