Who's in It: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janney
The Basics: Pregnant and deadpan, teenage Juno (Page) is no one's right-to-life poster girl. She doesn't want to abort her fetus, but she also knows better than to think she's got any business being a mother. She locates a potential adoptive couple and gets to know them. Meanwhile, she withdraws from the boyfriend who helped make the baby yet eventually learns life lessons. You knew someone had to. The good news, though, is that those lessons don't make you want to barf.
What's the Deal? Here's why you can barely trust film critics — this movie's been getting tons of great advance buzz from critics and other press, so naturally there's already a backlash against it, a swelling of poo-poo-ish commentary from people who clearly never saw License to Wed or Daddy Day Camp and don't know how to count their blessings and be grateful for the few that aren't evil crud when they have them on a screen right in front of their faces. Don't go in thinking your life is about to change from the insane, profound hilarity of it all and just accept it for the sweet, not-stupid, very funny, pro-teen-girl comedy it is. It's not like we're drowning in those.
What You'll Really Like About It: It knows its genre enough to mess with it. It sets up a lot of typical characters and scenarios — the loutish hipster guy she gets close to and who you think is going to make a move on her, the control freak suburban lady you're supposed to be annoyed by, the not-exactly-with-it parents you'd expect to be clueless from start to finish, the best female friend that movies tend to dispense with or use only as a convenience. And then the movie short-circuits all those types and pulls the rug out on what you think they're going to do next.
One Weird Thing: Our heroine talks a lot about loving old-school punk rock, but the soundtrack features a lot of too-cute indie pop from Kimya Dawson of Moldy Peaches fame.
Person to Watch: Besides co-star Cera, who's quickly proving himself a master of all awkward geekiness but not in that off-putting Napoleon Dynamite way, pay attention to the future career of screenwriter Diablo Cody. She's the hot new thing in Hollywood thanks to Juno, which I think is because (a) she's talented and funny and (b) she seems to be the kind of woman who'll sass back at male studio executives and get away with it. She used to be a stripper, which I think comes with a certain amount of knowledge on how to get uptight straight men to do what you want.