Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Academy award winning (best original screenplay) Juno - a remarkably candid movie

I am a movie buff - became one during my Salt Lake years. I particularly loved movie going at Trolley Square or the Broadway cinema - a good choice for Indy flick lovers. And, of course the dollar movies in Sugar House - everyone loves that - movies and popcorn for under ten bucks for two.

Now that I am resident in the NYC area, and my budget is somewhat limited, movies are not something that I can enjoy on a weekly basis - as a result, my tastes are more discriminating. This is a good thing.

I recently saw Juno - a movie about a teen couple who become pregnant, finds a newspaper ad and seeks out a couple to whom to gift their child. The mother of the child had originally wanted to have the pregnancy terminated, but after being heckled at an abortion clinic and hearing that her baby already had fingernails, she changed her mind and sought out the aforementioned couple (Jennifer Garner - uptight, Stepford wife and Jason Bateman - immature and amazingly inappropriate acting husband).

The movie was so very well done. Everything from the taunts that mum-to-be (Ellen Page), must endure in order to get around at school as her belly gets increasingly larger with the pregnancy's progression, to the awkwardness that comes to her relationship with her boyfriend and father of the child.

Juno is quirky, believable, loveable, kind and good-hearted. For those of you who have faced the heart-wrenching choice to terminate a pregnancy, the movie might be a bit much - it has a pretty decent ending - not Stepford-wife-esque - more Desperate Housewives-esque.

The movie is a candid look at the adoption process and its foibles. I highly recommend it. Having two close friends who have adopted, I loved the movie and how well it portrayed the emotions of the awaiting parents - the quandaries of the single mother and how this issue is far more complex than many realize.

Let us hope that Planned Parenthood will regain some of the funding lost through the Bush administration so that women actually have choices again.

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