More Film Roundup
Not very much time to post here before the Oscar nominations are announced. I’ve been continuing my efforts to see at least a few of the likely-to-be-nominated films. I’ve seen precisely two. So here goes.
I finally got to see Juno right after I got back from Christmas vacation. All except the late 11 o’clock showing were once again sold out here in NY, this time at the Times Square theater. So I finally got in the last showing of the evening. And the film was as delightful as people had been saying.
Juno MacGuff is a self-confident, quirky sixteen-year-old outsider with a smart mouth. The film opens as she takes a yet another home pregnancy test and confirms once again that yes, she’s going to have a baby. Her first instinct is to go to the “Women Now” clinic for an abortion. But she unexpectedly meets one of her classmates outside picketing the place - who tells Juno that her baby even has fingernails. She goes inside nevertheless. The sleaziness inside, the casual assumption that she is going to continue to be sexually active, and the insistent handing out of condoms really turn Juno off. But it’s the fingernails that haunt her. She leaves before her appointment. This must be the most resounding prolife moment in a movie this year.
The baby’s father, her classmate Paulie Bleecker (Michael Cera), is too dumbfounded to offer any advice when Juno tells him about the baby. Their single sex act was more experimental than passionate. So Juno figures she’d best move on from that relationship, and begins to make plans to find the perfect couple to adopt her baby. Her parents (J. K. Simmons and Alison Janney) turn out to be surprisingly supportive. The adoptive couple, of course, have to be really cool people, from Juno’s perspective. She approves of Vanessa (Jennifer Garner), and and Mark (Jason Bateman), a glamorous yuppie couple. She especially approves of Mark, a songwriter, and a fan of some of the same obscure 70’s bands she loves. They have a hilarious conversation about this early on; when Juno says of one band “You had to have been there,” Mark replies grumpily, “You weren’t even born then!” Things seem great. But unfortunately for Juno things don’t always turn out as you hope. She becomes an outcast at school, where she refers to herself as “The Cautionary Whale.” Even the ultrasound technician judges her. She now suspects that she’s actually in love with Paulie, who’s just invited someone else to the prom. And even Mark and Vanessa aren’t exactly what they seem. There are many surprises, heartbreak and heartwarming developments along the way.
The film’s sparkling script and quirky characters are standouts — though admittedly the hipster quotient of the dialogue frequently approaches surreal levels. And the script at times passes over much of the obvious in its search for the quirky, including the physical discomforts of pregnancy, and some of the recriminations real parents might offer. Some of the late second and third act developments are a little thin. But the movie has a genuine heart, and a brilliant young lead actress, Ellen Page, who can actually make that hip dialogue seem as if it’s realistically coming out of a human mouth — not only that, but this particular individual girl’s mouth. This warm movie has come out of nowhere to become a possible dark horse Best Picture contender.
I’ve also seen Charlie Wilson’s War - in some ways more delightful than I expected, and in other ways a disappointment. A brilliantly witty script with something of a letdown at the end. Some good acting all around and a particularly brilliant performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman as a rogue CIA agent who’s a model of keen intelligence, deadpan wit and unflappable cool — all wrapped up in a schlubby pot-bellied figure and unkempt mustache. Believe it or not, he’s based on a real person. But it’s getting late, I still have the Oscar nominations to write about — and more on the film will have to wait for later.
Other films I’ve seen: Enchanted, Hairspray. Those I’ve missed include many of the top contenders: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men; There Will be Blood. The Assassination of Jesse James. The Savages. And on and on. I desperately hope to see Once on video soon. Now on to the Oscars.