REVIEWING YOUR LIFE ON STAGE AND SCREEN
How often do we go to a theatre to escape the problems and mundanities of everyday life? How often do we come out of the theatre talking about what we saw, what it meant and, specifically, what it meant to us and how it made us feel about ourselves in the world as we see it? This series is a contribution to that dialogue.
JUNO
Ellen Page as Juno
Screenwriter Diablo Cody has a penchant for evocative names, beginning with her own nom de plume and continuing with the name of her title character in this year’s well-deserved Oscar-winner for Best Original Screenplay. In ancient Roman mythology, Juno is the Goddess of Fertility.
Very few films about teen-agers have universal appeal but Cody’s does, thanks to her witty dialogue and her compassionate fresh take on the universal dilemma of a pregnant teen-ager and how she deals with it.
Ellen Page, an Oscar nominee for the name role, brings a flippant self-assured edge to a role that she could be too pretty to pull off. Even her melt-down when she finds the adoptive parents she’s hand-picked (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman) are on the brink of a melt-down of their own slashes her tears with furious bewilderment..
“I don’t know what kind of a girl I am,” says Juno and Cody, who did her post-grad at the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop while moonlighting as an exotic dancer, shows how she uses what her mind and body have learned to flesh out this story.
A guy to watch is the father of Juno’s child, high school classmate Paulie Bleeker, played by Michael Cera, whose stork-long legs flash by in yellow jogging shorts and whose grave innocent face masks the fine mind and warm heart with which Juno fell in love.
Director Jason Reitman never condescends to his kids or sends them up, treating them like who they are, real people of a young age.
Make this movie work for you by remembering the humanity of people you’re dealing with at either end of the age spectrum. Delve for what life has leant your creativity and, if you face a life-altering dilemma like Juno’s,.polish your courage.
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