ADN

Re my review of the film here: http://www.ayhja.com/forums/viewpost.php?p=216486

OK...After you read that, and assuming you get the film (cause I clearly missed the biggest parts of it) maybe you can chop it up with me here...I'm expecting this thread to have spoilers, so if that's not you, please stop reading now...

My biggest issue with the film was trying to understand the relationships and the dynamics of them...The only one that I really think I understood was the one between Juno and her friend, and even that one was kinda off...Like I said in my review, I though that the movie was a dark comedy, cause there were some parts of it that I didn't think were meant to be taken seriously...And some seemed entirely seemed unrealistic....That's not to say I didn't like the movie though..! I mean, I liked it, I just didn't...Get it...It just seemed like the concepts were rolling one to the next, without even being fully elaborated on...Maybe that was the point of the whole thing, where that experience is meant to leave an impression on you, but I don't think so...

Case and point...What are we supposed to take from Juno's relationship with Jason Bateman's character..? That whole thing was just weird man, I thought I got it, but then I didn't get it...And when Garner's character comes into the mix, it further made it even weirder...The only set up to that who thing we had was the stepmom (who was great!) told her something along the lines of 'you just don't understand married couples'...And then, after the whole thing went up in smoke, the end of the movie totally befuddled me...

Please feel free to discuss...

Juno is a monumental film. FANTASTIC.

It was made by the "thank you for smoking" guy. He gets it. for real!

The whole movie is so damn great.

Case and point...What are we supposed to take from Juno's relationship with Jason Bateman's character..?

Isn't that the way real relationships are? I took it simply as Jason Bateman was already planning on moving out. Put an ad in penny saver for pete's sake. He didn't want to grow up, and Juno totally was a way for him to recapture the side of himself he was going back to when he was moving out. He still wanted to be a kid, not a father... He was flirtatious, and clearly not uninterested in juno's attention. Moreover, he really wanted another shot at music. He and Garner were not a good fix because their sense of happiness was basically incompatible. He tried to change, the change didn't fit, and he couldn't hold up the charade. Her demands were also very specific and left little chance for his easier-going professional life and subculture clingings to fit into her socially conservative environment. But it reality, she was trying to make a "normal" place for herself because "normally" she would have a family and child. When she see that doesn't exist... she has to mae peace with it.

Juno was hoping by their tastes in music, anti-fashion, and horror flicks the child would grow up with an exposure to the similar things that she thought were cool, and in fact some of the subculture intellectual flexibility she saw as a cultivation of the human spirit. She had given up on music, but like Bateman rediscovers her music. She had sex with tic-tac boy because she knew she trusted him, and she had resigned her childhood... but then ran straight back to it when things became too adult. She had mom issues, from her mom abandoned her, and wanted to make sure the child would be going to a good home where the parents would BOTH love the baby. something she never had... When she sees that humans by hook and crook are not guaranteed happiness the first time round, and she sees that her dad and his wife are truly and utterly nuts AND happy, she finally sees the courage to TRY to share and develop the love with the boy she had basically spent most of her life with.

Her stepmother was so damn good. GREAT woman. nuff said.

Her friend was so animated she still finds her way into my thoughts.

This movie is about killing the expectations of normal, and accepting with wit and love whatever the fuck there really is... even if you don't know what it is yet. This is really an aspect of the post-punk era, which heavily influences this movie and creeps in in places I could sit next to you and point out until I get a sore throat. People feel, but they always keep a wit and emotional and intellectual flexibility about them that makes them seem, to me, the ideal specimen of what I am looking for in peers, family, and friends. And in fact, I feel like I know someone who reminds me of everyone in that movie.
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OK raum, I get that..! I totally feel the same way...Everything you said is what I was thinking I was supposed to be thinking...I guess I paid too much attention to the subtleties and thought that they meant more than they were supposed to...And then I always pay close attention to the dialog at awkward moments...Shit sticks out in my mind...

Like for instance, the boyfriend was staring at her picture in the yearbook holding a pair of a drawers...Emotionally, me, as a man, I can't go there...I've been through some SHIT when it comes to girls...Maybe put a few pannies in the conquer box, but I can't even imagine going there...So, I'm thinking, maybe this is supposed to be funny, or maybe he's obsessed, or...Shit...To me, that complicated their relationship...Were they homie lover friends, did he just like her...WTF..?

There was one time she was going to see Bateman's character, and they made an elaborate attempt for us to see her putting on lipstick...Already, it seems as if Juno was the kind of girl to give a shit about makeup...So, when I see that, I'm like, hmm...OK...So, she goes in, dude is slow dancing her, and then he breaks the news, and she freaks out...I get it that he didn't seem totally gassed about the whole thing, but part of me was thinking that he was 80% of the reason she even clicked with the family in the first place...I just kinda thought that I must have missed something...She is all intent to see the baby go to a good family, that family falls the fuck out, she still gives the baby up, and then decides to love her baby daddy..?

Even more so, if some young, pregnant chick was in my house, in the basement, and wifey came home...Both of us would probably be dead...Yet, she didn't react in that way at all, which totally threw me off because of what the stepmom said about adult relationships and outsiders...Like I said, I think I just read too much into parts where I wasn't supposed to...