The 2007 comedy drama film, "Juno" is about a teenage girl named Juno who becomes pregnant by her awkward and frail cross country running boyfriend.
Upon learning about her conception, at first Juno wants to abort the baby because she worries that her family is going to ostracize her. After a plethora of struggles, Juno and her family decide to stay together. and give birth to her child. They decide to send the baby to an ideal couple who has the resources and experience to raise the child. Throughout the conversations Juno has with the husband, she starts to learn that she has to take the responsibilities and consequences of what she has allowed to happen.
"Juno" aims to show its audience the serious problem of teenage pregnancy in a rather dark, but humorous manner. "Juno" also delivers the message that teenagers should be mature, independent, and be able to take responsibility.
The movie renders the humorous and relaxing environment, and presents the moral in front of the audiences by creating a cartoon opening for the movie, giving strong personalities to Juno and setting up a scene between Juno and Su-Chin before Juno decides not to go through with the abortion.
The beginning of the movie uses the graffiti-ish cartoon images to represent the scene of Juno walking along the way into a store. Juno holds an orange juice bottle with a smile on her face. Birds slowly fly away to the blue sky when Juno walks past them. Red leaves are falling down when Juno looks up to the sky. After Juno finishes the last sip of the orange juice, she throws the bottle to the trashcan in the store as the scene changes back to real life.
The background music is lively and vibrant as it sings, “If I was a flower going wild and free, all I wanted you to be my sweet honey bee.” The music is relaxing and delightful, which shows us that the environment is joyful and Juno is in a good mood. Audiences can literally feel the jumping of the notes and the rhythm in front of them.
The use of cartoons at the beginning of a movie is very novel and can easily catch the audience's attention. It also uses fairly bright and contrastive colors to make the scenes come alive. The youthfulness of a 16-year-old teenager is shown through vivid drawings that are shining on the screen.
The beginning of a movie usually sets the overall atmosphere for the whole film. For Juno, as we can see from the two minute long beginning, the film is going to deliver the message in a humorous, young, and positive way. The light music and warm sunlight, which we can tell from the colored drawing reflects Juno’s vigor and energy.
From the beginning, the characters' personalities are very strong in Juno. Juno’s style of dress with the jeans, hoodie, and sneakers, tells us that she lives in a natural and casual way. Juno talks in a fast pace tone and wears a ponytail through the whole movie. We can tell that she is not the kind of girl who tries to use her appearances to impress other boys in school. Therefore, her love for her boyfriend is true and loyal.
She gives the audiences the impression that she is strong and different from other high-school girls from the outside, but actually she’s very soft and fragile from the inside.
For example, there is a scene where Juno tells her boyfriend that she’s pregnant when her boyfriend is about to exercise in the morning. She sits on the couch with her legs crossed and is smoking a pipe. Usually it means they are really relaxed and comfortable when people cross their legs to sit.
This is the message Juno wants to deliver to both the audiences and her boyfriend in the movie: She doesn’t care that she is pregnant.
However, as we keep watching, we can figure out that it isn’t true. Juno is actually pretending to be indifferent and she is nervous inside.
She starts her conversation with her boyfriend by talking about his gold shorts. Suddenly her attention is drawn by the other guys who are running pass her. Usually when we are trying to say something that we are afraid to say, we tend to look for irrelevant topics to pave the way of what we really want to say. Juno does that by talking about her boyfriend’s gold shorts.
When we are trying to say something that we don’t know how others will react after hearing it, we also tend to be easily distracted by other things around us. Because we’re shaking inside and our mind is very loose at that certain time. Juno shows this trait when the running guys are able to distract her.
As I mentioned earlier, Juno is not the type of girl who can be caught up easily and tries to impress other guys. When she finally cut straight to the core that she is pregnant, she takes the pipe out of her mouth and her fingers are scratching on the pipe. It shows that she is very nervous and has no idea how her boyfriend is going to react when she has the action of scratching the surface of her pipe.
The background sound of that scene is totally silent. The three seconds seems like three hours when I was watching it.
Her boyfriend’s silence allows me to hear Juno’s heartbeats even though there is no background music.
The director gives Juno a close-up camera. Audiences can clearly see Juno frowning and her eyeballs are moving upwards and then downwards for a couple times. This shows Juno is feeling extremely awkward and disappointed. However, she hides that expression on her face as soon as her boyfriend says that do whatever she feels is right to do. She raises her pitch and blinks her eyes when she responses him. She says that she should never have sex with him as she leaves. From her words, we can interpret that she actually expect more than that. Maybe she wants a caring look from her boyfriend or maybe just a hug.
Juno puts the pipe in her mouth again as she rides on her bicycle. The pipe functions as the transition of Juno’s psychological activities. When she is smoking the pipe, which means she is trying to disguise the nervousness and insecurity of herself. When she takes out the pipe that means she is actually opening her soft and fragile heart, and expect some real comforts.
There are also some other characters that help shape the changes of Juno’s thoughts and personalities.
One of the characters is Juno’s classmate, Su-Chin.
There is a scene where Juno decides to go into a hospital to abort the baby while she meets Su-Chin using propaganda to tell people not to get an abortion in front of the hospital. The background behind Su-Chin is the shabby hospital with really dark colors. It makes an extraordinarily contrast with the bright blue and baby pink of her clothes.
Her nerdy glasses, baggy jacket, and hat show us that she is raised in a very traditional family that will protect her if anything tries to hurt her.
Su-Chin yells really loud that “All babies want to get born” with an advertisement board in her hands so that people who pass by can hear.
However, Juno doesn't really care what Su-Chin says at first. She starts the conversation with Su-Chin by asking if Su-Chin has finished the paper. Juno talks in a really high pitch voice and exaggerates her gestures when she is talking. She talks in a funny manner as if she is acting on stage. This makes a huge contrast with Su-Chin’s facial expression and reaction. All Su-Chin cares about is persuading Juno not to get an abortion. So Su-Chin still keeps her frowning face, and responds to Juno in a really low voice and plain pitch.
Juno talks in such exaggerating ways because she wants to distract Su-Chin’s attention away from telling her not to get abortion. The silence of the background without any music makes the scene even more awkward. Audiences can feel Juno’s intention of distracting Su-Chin, but fails to do so. Juno frowns and keeps walking to the clinic to get an abortion when Su-Chin doesn’t give her the kind of reaction she wants.
However, when Su-Chin mentions that Juno’s baby may even have FINGERNAILS as Juno walks pass her, Juno stops for a couple seconds and asks Su-Chin, “Really? The baby has fingernails?” This shows us she is probably thinking what the tiny little fingernails on her baby will be like.
The background sound is so quiet and it's like we can hear the two characters’ hearts beating. This scene is a turning point and it foreshadows the decision that Juno will make up her mind later to not have an abortion.
Su-Chin is important because her simple words push the movie plot forward. Her words also awaken the responsibilities and conscience inside of Juno. Juno knows that it is selfish and irresponsible to give and take away a life that easily. This scene is a big change of Juno getting on the right track to becoming a responsible person.
Juno’s decision to not go through with the abortion is the best witness to show that Juno is growing up during the four seasons filmed in the movie.
Juno’s family supports her along the way to help her not to get lost, and encourages her to be brave and to accept the reality in order to solve the problems directly. The phenomenon of teenagers becoming pregnant mothers is supposed to be a serious topic, but the movie discusses it in an easy way by creating the story of Juno.
The movie focuses more on how this serious problem can change a person in a positive way rather than focusing on the problem itself.
It delivers the clear message to audiences that people, especially teenagers, should be able to face their problems and take up their own responsibilities.
