the movieGOOMBA

4.5 GOOMBAS

Pregnancy is in. I’d argue that it started with Lucille Ball, but I think it really started with Apple, Coco, Shilo, and Suri, the burgeoning generation of the children of celebrities. Jessica Alba and JLo are a-baking, Christina and Nicole Richie just spawned. Women are just sprouting babies everywhere. Maybe it’s because we can actually say “pregnant” instead of “with child” on TV, but either way, gestation is in.

Relatively unrecognized actress Ellen Paige stars in this coming of age comedy, Juno. “It started with a chair,” and then sixteen-year-old Juno MacGuff was pregnant. This is the story of how Juno deals with life in her unconventional and spunky way, and unknowingly teaches everyone around her a lesson in perseverance.

The dialogue in this film is smart and hilariously facetious, with just the right amount of sarcasm and zip. The writers deserve props, but so do the actors for their meticulous delivery of such perfect one-liners; “As far as boyfriends go, Paulie Bleeker is totally boss. He is the cheese to my macaroni.”

Juno MacGuff is one of the best characters I’ve seen in a very long time. She has attitude, she’s articulate in a slang-ish kind of way, and she’s bluntly honest. She has integrity and a firm understanding of her capability and her limits. As immature as she is in regard to her taste in funky clothing, blue frozen drinks, and choice of room décor (a hamburger phone, come on now), she takes her current situation and addresses it with ration and frankness. Her atypical candor while checking her pregnancy is already a testament to her independent, logical manner; all a typical day’s drama for this teen freak.

I hesitate to even comment on Juno’s “puffy” situation because really, the pregnancy’s a gimmick. The movie may use it to offer an interesting twist to a teenager’s life, but in all seriousness, it’s not about the sea monkey growing in her stomach. I never felt like her pregnancy was represented as a mistake. I don’t know what that says about society, but to me, the film’s non-judgmental tone is liberating. In a world so full of hate and narrow-minded sense, Juno makes a definite and defining decision, follows through with it, and moves on.

Juno is awesome. As funny and different as this film is, it really spoke to me on a different level. A movie with a combo like that is like, dude, one wicked baby big head out of a million food babies.