Juno What? Jit Wasn't Bad.

I read the "Juno" screenplay before seeing the movie, and full disclosure, it made me eat my own heart with a grapefruit spoon. Funny, smart, original, on paper "Juno" is everything I've ever aspired to be as a screenwriter.

I was prepared to see the movie, and much like the first time I saw "Finding Nemo" or "O Brother Where Art Thou?", realize that someone already had the career of my dreams and despair that I would ever find my own spot in the sunlight. (Television very rarely fills me with such hopelessness, maybe because I realize that with so many hours of original television per year, there's always another shot at greatness. Movies are far dicier -- they take so much time and money, it seems there's just a finite number of chances to get it right.)

I liked "Juno" a lot. I probably shouldn't have read the screenplay before hand, but I couldn't help myself. A number of references went right over my head, but the ones I got ("Thundercats are go!") made me laugh. Even so, probably my favorite thing in the whole film is Paulie Bleeker's mumbled reply to Juno's claim that he's really cool and he doesn't even try. "I try really hard, actually."

Being me, I had problems with the film even so. (You may remember that the thing that dumbfounded me about "No Country for Old Men" was my complete inability to see something I would have changed or tweaked. I didn't like the ending, but I have no idea how to do it differently.)

Mainly, I didn't know what I was hoping for. Or, more precisely, I didn't know what I feared would happen. Juno is so capable, so steady, nothing seems to shake her. Even when (to avoid spoilers) the fates turn against her, it's hard to see what the problem is. She comes from a stable family, her stepmom already has maternal feelings towards the unborn child, and in her small Minnesota town, she's earned exactly one dirty look, one snide remark and a wide berth from her classmates. She reports that everyone makes fun of her behind her back, but we never see it, or the impact of that mocking on her ego. She's bulletproof.

Somehow in the course of making a movie about how a plucky heroine gets herself in a jam and manages to triumph, the writer and director managed to soften all the hard corners and rough spots of the jam, so it no longer seems like such a big deal.

Which, to check in for a minute with reality, is nuts. Teenage, out of wedlock, still a junior in high school pregnancy, is an extremely big deal.

I was, for all intents and purposes, vacuum sealed like a can of Hills Bros. coffee from birth until well into college. And I mean, well into college. But even so, the spectre of unplanned pregnancy loomed large through all four years of high school. What if this innocent flirtation blossomed into actual dating? And what if dating blossomed into necking? And what if... And right about then, I'd start working through exactly how screwed I would be if I got pregnant.

The disappointment of my teachers, the judgment of my peers, the awkward moments in health class. How would I take gym? What about the PSATs? The ACT? The SAT? The AP Exams? The upcoming production of "The Foreigner" that I was supposed to stage manage?

And that was just in the time it would take me to carry the trash from the back door to the alley.

So what I'm wondering is, how do you spend six months writing a screenplay, and a couple years making the resulting movie, and never touch on any of this? No one Juno likes and/or respects ever judges, criticizes or rejects her for the decision she makes. In other words, no one ever *tests* that incredible resolve and fortitude -- in fact, considering the comfy snuggly world she moves in, I'm not sure where that resolve and fortitude comes from. (Note, by the way, that even though her biological mom has ditched out on her, she's welcome and loved in her dad's new family -- and not spending her life traveling between the two households.)

Look, it was a sweet movie and I enjoyed it. All I'm saying is: If you're going to tell a story that, frankly, many millions of teenage girls have lived first hand, you might honor their suffering and experience by at least touching on some of the crap they had to deal with and yes, overcome. Otherwise, it's like opening "Saving Private Ryan" with shots of twenty soldiers skipping off a troop transport and up a garden path through a rose garden to have a little tea party before heading in country.