Juno

Year: 2007 Rating: PG-13 Overall Evaluation: 8.0 Significance Suppositions Story Style 8.5 / 10 8.0 / 10 7.0 / 10 6.0 / 10 Click HERE for evaluation criteria.

Style

Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, sexual content and language. The language only gets really strong occasionally but there are lots of crude terms thrown around and lots of sexual talk. Gratuitous although not horrible. The relation between the husband and the girl gets a bit weird too. Nothing else terribly objectionable to me.

Story

Juno is a hugh school junior who gets pregnant during a one time fling with her one of her best friends (male, obviously). She decides to get an abortion, of course, but then changes her mind at the clinic when she discovers that her baby "already has fingernails." She bails on the abortion route and decides to give the baby up to a yuppie couple who cannot conceive. Relationships between the three of them get weird, as do those with her family and friends but eventually it all works out.

Suppositions

The worldview is basically "typical american teen." The kids are smarter than practically anyone and seem to be able to do anything they want. Pretty straightforward teen movie stuff.

Significance

The pro-life stance of the film is certainly welcome although it is not the movie's main message. Taking responsibility for one's actions is a stronger theme and thus pro-abortionists probably won't feel preached at. I appreciated the obvious-yet-subtle manner the film had of conveying the pro-life theme (usually couched in humorous / understated scenes) - Christian film makers could learn a lot from that. The tried-and-true(?) message of true love comes through pretty strongly as well. Overall quite good.