***Warning this may not be fully coherent and may contain spoilers***
I was prepared to hate it. I really was. From the moment I first heard about its existence I was prepared to be angry. For months I wasn’t even going to see it. I had made up my mind I would not be spending money to see that trash.
And then I got to thinking about how wrong it is to judge something without any basis for that judgment. I hadn’t seen it and neither had those I’d gotten information from. And so I prepared myself. I went back and forth about who I’d see it with finally deciding to go alone so if it was as bad as I was expecting I could leave without ruining someone else’s moving going experience.
It finally made it to my favorite indie movie house last night it was sold out so this morning I set out still prepared to hate it. Prepared to be angry prepared to hate myself for spending $6. I must admit before walking into the theater I read a review in our local independent weekly paper that had my hopes up. Maybe I wont hate it I said to myself as I sat waiting for the previews maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Much like I had while waiting for August Rush to begin I scanned the crowd trying to recognize any other birth/first/natural mothers (because you know we all have these huge flashing neon arrows pointing us out).
And then it started. All in all I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it, oh not by a long shot, but I didn’t hate it. I’m impressed that with the subject matter they were able to make me laugh.
There were parts that rang true, at least to me. While I took my home pregnancy test in the privacy of my own bathroom I do have high school memories of standing in the drug store ladies room waiting with a friend to see if that magic plus sign appears.
And the way the e-dad responds to the news she’s pregnant the stammering the facial expressions the final “do whatever you think you should do” remark yeah that happens.
Stereotypes are all over this movie but I didn’t feel offended by the movie. It didn’t feel to me that Juno was perpetuating these stereotypes merely acknowledging them. Perhaps this is naïveté speaking but is it possible that a mainstream movie acknowledging these things could work in our favor? Could this be a chance for those not involved directly with adoption to see some of those stereotypes, perhaps even stereotypes they themselves hold and question them?
A few of the things from the movie I take issue with:
The word “selfless” was mentioned a few too many times for my liking. And of course Juno says adoption will make her be able to “pretend it never happened”
Step mom does refer to the baby as a “precious gift from jesus”
Open adoption is defined as annual updates THAT’S NOT OPEN!
Things that made me happy:
when adoption is first couched to grandparents to be Juno’s step mother does tell her that relinquishing (my word not hers) will be “tougher than you can understand”
Dad decides to accompany Juno to meet the paparents to make sure she doesn’t get manipulated.
And my personal favorite moment:
Juno is getting her first ultrasound and mentions the names of the p-aparents the ultrasound tech asks if those are friends from school and Juno tells her they are the adoptive parents. The ultrasound tech makes an “oh well thank goodness for that” comment followed by degrading young unplanned pregnancy and then Juno’s stepmother with a little assistance from Juno rip the tech a new one.
I’m not thrilled with the ending (to put it mildly). Apparently my beloved local weekly lied to me. Juno never sees her son which is fairly common but she says that he never felt like her baby. He always felt like the pamom’s baby. That pissed me off.
I get that we can’t all get the movie ending we want. But what I would have loved is since at the beginning Juno mentions adoption will allow her to pretend it never happened is for at the end when its showing that her life went on to have her voice over saying something like “Life did go on, but it never went back to how it was before.” For there to be some acknowledgment that what she’d just gone through didn’t just end when she signed the papers.
Oh and if you’re worried that the humor is all at the expense of one side of the triad A-parents didn’t get off the hook there were plenty of jokes about them even had an international adoption joke thrown in for good measure.
