| Monday, December 31, 2007 |
| The Best Film of 2007: "Juno" |
For its first 15 or 20 minutes, "Juno" is a very smart and funny movie about a hyper-articulate 16-year-old girl who finds herself pregnant after a bit of fooling around with her best friend. Then, gradually, it turns into something much deeper than that: a story about the importance of community and family and sticking together in the face of adversity.
After an ill-fated visit to an abortion clinic, Juno decides to have the baby and give it up for adoption. She finds a pleasant yuppie couple living in what looks to be a freshly-built suburb, the kind with tract mansions built on an endless series of cul-de-sacs. (Juno herself is the product of a lower-middle-class upbringing and a broken home, and it seems obvious that on some unconscious level she wants her child to have a different kind of life.) The wife, Vanessa, comes across initially as a slightly icy perfectionist, the type of woman who spends hours deciding which color to paint the nursery ("custard or cheesecake?," she muses, looking at two practically identical shades of off-white); the husband, Mark, is an ex-rocker who now writes music for TV commercials and bonds with Juno over a shared love of horror movies and Mott the Hoople. At first Mark seems like a cool guy while Vanessa's more of a cold fish, but the viewer's perceptions of the two shift and turn over the course of the film. Much of the credit for that goes to Jennifer Garner, whose portrayal of Vanessa is exceptionally nuanced.
Usually I watch films with a certain amount of emotional detachment, but "Juno" broke through all of my defenses. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is a brief bit near the end, when a lost-looking Juno is lying in bed in the maternity ward, her father sitting by her side, stroking her hair: "Someday," he reassures her, "you'll be back here on your own terms." For all the attention "Juno" has been getting for its flip and witty dialogue, the thing that really makes it work is the truth underlying the relationships between its flawed but lovable characters.
The rest of the top 10:
2. "The Lives Of Others"
3. "Once"
4. "The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters"
5. "Ratatouille"
6. "Rocket Science"
7. "The Lookout"
8. "Knocked Up"
9. "The Bourne Ultimatum"
10. "Paris Je T'aime" |
posted by 125records @ 9:20 AM  |
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| 2 Comments: |
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Excellent list! And you're so right about Jennifer Garner's performance, too. A lot of people seem to dismiss her because of ALIAS or the DAREDEVIL movies, but she's pretty stupendous in JUNO, which is all the more remarkable because her character is so hemmed-in and low-key. Even when she gets angry, her emotional temperature barely seems to rise: Vanessa is one of those women who has trained herself not to put her cards out on the table so that she can appear more "serious" and "stable." Garner understands that and resists the urge to give her that big, messy breakdown you expect. Everyone in the film is terrific, but Vanessa, remarkably, was the character who completely took me by surprise.
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Finally, a Top 10 list I've seen a few of. Paris J'Taime was interesting and quirky. It was also fun playing spot the celebrity cameo.
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Excellent list! And you're so right about Jennifer Garner's performance, too. A lot of people seem to dismiss her because of ALIAS or the DAREDEVIL movies, but she's pretty stupendous in JUNO, which is all the more remarkable because her character is so hemmed-in and low-key. Even when she gets angry, her emotional temperature barely seems to rise: Vanessa is one of those women who has trained herself not to put her cards out on the table so that she can appear more "serious" and "stable." Garner understands that and resists the urge to give her that big, messy breakdown you expect. Everyone in the film is terrific, but Vanessa, remarkably, was the character who completely took me by surprise.