Pun Salad

As I type, Juno is number 199 on IMDB's top 250 movies of all time. Please. But it's pretty good.

Juno is a 16-year-old girl who's smart, funny, and as foulmouthed as you can be in a PG-13 movie. She's also with child, and the movie follows her story over the course of her pregnancy. She initially goes to an abortion clinic, but skedaddles from the waiting room. (That's a slight spoiler, but it would be a pretty short movie otherwise.) Eventually, she settles on a privately-arranged adoption with a nice yuppie couple, but all is not as it seems.

Juno is sharply observant of other peoples' foibles, but (refreshingly) non-condescending. All characters are three-dimensional and credible. Even the character that comes closest to a caricature, a lone abortion protester outside the clinic, has her job to do: she says the one little thng that eventually dissuades Juno from getting the abortion.

The screenwriter, Diablo Cody, won an Oscar; this was her first screenplay. The movie was also nominated for Best Picture, Jason Reitman was nominated for Best Director, and Ellen Page, who plays Juno, was nominated for Best Actress. Not bad.