Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

17 January 2008

Juno, dir. Jason Reitman (2007)

NIKKI says:
I wanted to love it so much more than I did. Prior to watching, Steve and I both said we expected much pretentiousness and we were right. But what I didn't expect was the film's emotional turn towards the end. It really let go of all its culturally-aware bullshit ("Honest to blog!" and that fucking hamburger phone -- can nothing be normal in these pictures?), and became something quite heartfelt. There was a message amid the cleverness, and, turns out, the message bit really worked for me.

I've had many people tell me the reason I hated Knocked Up must be because I don't have children, which I think is bupkiss, because I've never been pregnant but She's Having a Baby is one of my most beloved films. And, besides, Knocked Up isn't a film about having kids, it's a film about idiots. My point is, if they want to believe that, then in return, I give them this. There was much here for me, a person not too sure where I stand on the motherhood issue. Do I want, do I not want? Am I selfish, am I a perpetual child? Or am I afraid? Do I, like Mark in this film, just want to be a rock star? Or not even that, specifically, but to have the choice.

This, for me, is a movie about finding out who we are. For all it's so-called "quirk", the film has a strong core, a desire to say something about people, caught up in their lives, lives they hoped for, or lives they didn't, and must change. This aspect of the film hit me hard. I also thought there was a lot of good comedy here, mostly thanks to the work of JK Simmons. And I was thrilled to see Jason Bateman doing drama again. He was amazing in this.

The downside here is only that the film is so clearly desperate in its desire to be clever. And it doesn't need to be. It's good, without all the unrealistic crap.

3.5 out of 5.

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