Be notified of page updates

it's private

powered by ChangeDetection

Go see Juno

Listening to:	I'm Not In Love, 10cc
Reading:	what's next?
Weather:	40, gray

I don't generally use the imperative mood. Even in my bumperstickers I'm careful not to present my message as a command. Who am I to tell anyone what to do? I think there's a human instinct to push back and question authority, so it's therefore kinda stupid to demand that people "visual world peace" or "honk if you love jesus" or even "question authority."

But this movie is so good, I'm saying go see it. What's so good about it? The acting performances. The writing and the snappy dialogue. The story. The pacing. The way the music choices blend with the style of the film. The off-beat non-Hollywood flavor so rare in a good off-beat romantic comedy. Is that enough for you? Now the caveat: perhaps my appreciation of this movie is because the film's situations are close to my heart. I've been a teenage girl, and I'm raising one right now. And like many women on this planet, unintentional pregnancy has been a looming fear in the background of many decades of my existence, and still will be for probably another decade or two, Odin willing and the creek don't rise.

But all movie watching comes down to narcism anyway, right? Good movies are good because they correspond in some way with what's already inside your brain. Even if only to jump off from that point, they still require a nexus with your experience in there somewhere. Why else would you give a shit about the characters? How else would you be able to get surprised by a twist if you hadn't already predicted the film going in some other direction?

So maybe I should change this blogpost title. Maybe you won't identify with the people and situations in Juno. But I think you will, even if she's not you. There's certainly some universality in the plight of a teenage girl who likes a boy, and is trying to figure out how to get next to him even after she kinda screwed up the beginning of that cosmic dance. And everybody has navigated a regrettable situation of his or her own making that just doesn't have a perfect solution, but which requires a choice from among a collection of shitty solutions, and includes the options of seeing silver linings. We've all been surprised by unexpected rewards for tackling hard things with grace.

If I'm right and you know about this stuff, go see Juno.

permalink posted by cat 9:59 AM

read 0 comments