A moment of passion and weakness leads tiny 16 year old Juno toward a journey she never expected at her young age.
Will she receive the support she deserves in order to make the right choices?
Will she handle it with the same maturity expressed in her smart and witty persona?
Will her confident attitude prevent others from taking advantage of her during this time of crisis?
The answer to these questions are of course a matter of opinion to those of us who have seen the film, so you’ll have to watch Juno for decide for yourself. If you’re not familiar, it’s the latest of the most recent adoption themed movies, and it received a number of Oscar nominations. It even won for best screenplay - which is not entirely surprising given the type of humor involved, and the supposedly sensitive subject matter.
The bigger question of course is whether or not it’s possible to make an adoption themed movie that satisfies all three members of the triad. Even more specific, is it possible to make such a movie that satisfies even the subgroups of one part of the triad? In this case, I’m not sure anyone outside of single adoptive mothers would be fully satisfied in terms of the portrayal of adoption itself. (note: please don’t take that as commentary on single adoptive mothers)
This whole film is just perplexing to me because it really isn’t about adoption, it’s about relinquishment. It’s about the process that Juno endures in order to give her baby to baby to a much more deserving family who have more money and will be able to love her more. The can’t have children on their own, and Juno’s too young and poor, so it only makes sense that this other couple from the suburbs should take the little bastard off her hands.
If you know me by now, you’ll wonder how I managed to type that last paragraph. Yah, of course those are lousy reasons to relinquish a child, and awful and hurtful language to use in that circumstance. But that’s exactly what Juno is like. And not just the girl, the entire film is like this. Well, not the entire film I guess.
I kindof liked the movie at first - it paints a quaint and uncritical little picture of the lower middle class neighborhood where Juno and her boyfriend live. Given my background, and the tendency of movies to paint such folks as rednecks, I found this element by itself is refreshing. However, Juno’s language and attitude toward her unborn child reflect that awful impression you received from what I wrote above.
The movie actually takes a more critical look at the suburban upper-class family that seeks to adopt Juno’s baby. While they’re not quite caricatures, they do seem to exude some of the negative stereotypes one might expect. They’re materialistic, calculating, and perfect. The potential adoptive mom is patronizing and obsessed with becoming a parent, while the potential adoptive dad never seems to have matured since college.
These two worlds collide, and the film pretends to portray Juno in a positive light - theoretically negating the crisis pregnancy stereotype. The suburban couple turns out to have a somewhat fake marriage and only material wealth. Juno comes across as the only smart person in the room with her witty banter and decisive manner. But they still put forth the underlying notion that the mother has not real connection to her child. She doesn’t care about “it” at all. In fact, Juno doesn’t really seem to care about anyone - she’s not the least bit likable to me.
Meanwhile the adoptive mom experiences these amazing moments of connection, as if she’s truly the rightful mother to this child. She runs into Juno and her pals at the mall, feels the baby kick, and ends up in lala land, while the poor teenage mom looks down in confusion. Super-mom also obsesses over the perfect nursery and baby supplies, while Juno finds time to bounce back and forth between the father of her child and the (creepy) future father of her child. This juxtaposition actually intriguingly feeds directly toward the resolution of the film, which I’ll leave unstated here (you can look it up if you want).
I won’t go any further into anylizing Juno, the film or Juno the character. As an adult adoptee, the Red Head’s far better equipped to do this herself. I will tell you this - when we left the theater I didn’t care for the film, but by the time I finished talking with her I just felt crushed about the whole thing. She wrote this the day after seeing the film, and I’ve been sitting on this review for a while now.
Guest blogger - The Red Head
I finally saw Juno yesterday. For whatever reason I had been wanting to see it. I read the spoiler…I knew how it ended but still I just HAD to see what all the hype was about! It was a little like a train wreck…I kind of knew it would be bad but I just couldn’t look away!
The short of it…I HATED IT!!!! LOATHED!!! DESPISED!!!! It left me heartbroken and SICK!!!! I’ve barely thought of anything else since watching it yesterday and I HATE THAT!!!!
DH even asked, after the movie was over, why I wanted to see it! He thought, before we even went, that I would have a problem with the age of the character (my natural mom was a teenager as well). He was afraid I would make a closer connection than even I realized I would make! Yet still we saw it. And I didn’t cry…I didn’t shed a tear. I sat there in disbelief at the callous language, feeling that dagger in my back twist with every reference to “it”. I wanted…no…LONGED for Juno to just ONCE speak lovingly about the child she was carrying! All of a sudden, before I knew what was happening, I was hearing those words come out of her mouth as if she were speaking ABOUT ME!!! For the rest of the movie I sat there imagining how my natural mother talked about ME when she was pregnant. And my dream world just crumbled right around me! Sure, I wouldn’t expect anything less from a pregnant teenager. But before seeing this movie I hadn’t allowed myself to view that part of my life as a reality.
Going into this movie I thought I would have a much more difficult time with the natural mother references. I thought this movie would be more directed at the decisions Juno had to make and what influenced her to make the decisions she made. And yes…I left ticked off at her final decision and the idea that no one was REALLY there to help her! Sure, her BFF and step-Mom went with her to the doctor and were with her in the delivery room, but where was the HELP?! The real, professional, unbiased help?! Why wasn’t there anyone there to tell her that if she wanted she COULD raise this baby just as well as the single woman to whom she gave him?! I found it despicable!
I DID find the character believable and the acting very well done! Obviously, just a bit TOO well done, considering I was unable to separate the movie from MY real-life!!! And it made me sad! I hated the story for the story! I couldn’t say whether it should have been written any differently to shed a truer light on any particular experience because I have never walked in a natural parent’s shoes. All I can say is from the perspective of an adoptee, it HURT!!! It hurt a lot!!!
Posted on April 28th, 2008 by CJs Daddy
Filed under: Adoption, Thoughts
Leave a Reply