Juno

I watched Juno a few weeks ago (after watching 25 episodes of Blood+, post related to that to come later after I finish watching all 50 episodes) and really enjoyed it. It's been on my to-watch list forever, and I had almost become afraid of watching it; because I was completely primed to like it, I felt that with such high expectations, I might be disappointed. Anyway, as the whole world knows by now, Juno is a movie about a teenage girl with an unexpected and unwanted pregnancy. Rather than playing out as a cautionary tale however, Juno takes an intelligent approach to the dilemma and allows its lead character (Juno) to make a choice about her own body. Abortion is presented as an option, and while Juno does not ultimately choose this path, it was at least considered. She decides to have the baby, but recognizing that she is ill-equipped at the moment to be a mother, she chooses an attractive couple from a newspaper ad to adopt her child. The movie deals with its topic with a fairly light hand and there are a lot of laughs. However, the greatest feat of Juno (the movie) is being able to balance these laughs with the appropriate gravity surrounding such weighty themes as teenage pregnancy, adulthood, marriage and love. I generally stay away from movies described as such, but Juno may rank among those "feel-good movies of the year." Rate *****