Juno: The Subtle Art of Misdirection

Juno is not a detective story, but it does a good job of throwing you off the scent.

Music: Divine Life Society by Jesse Gallagher

[phantomrose]

My favorite touch in the Mark/Vanessa dynamic is her Alice In Chains shirt in the scene where she’s painting the baby room. Either it’s his shirt and she thinks so little of it that she paints in it, or it’s her old shirt that she now uses as a chore shirt. She’s evolved either way. And there’s literally a baby yellow streak right across it, showing how much that takes priority over the band she may have once bonded with him over.

[taylorparis]

I personally interpreted it as Juno truly seeing Mark as a friend (in her odd ways) and never understanding the depth of how weird it actually was. She was young and because she wanted Mark and Vanessa to be deeply in love for the baby's sake, she never thought he'd like her as she liked him..because she thought he was devoted to his wife. I think that's why the second he makes his move saying he wants to leave Vanessa, Juno is disgusted and angry.
The movie is far more complex then most give/gave it credit for. I'm glad you pointed that out. Surprisingly it still kinda holds up today! Page and Cara had perfect chemistry imo

[lonellfletcher]

This is when you truly realize the brilliance of a film, when it can be broken down and analyzed and come out MORE brilliant than you remember.

[teelakovacs]

Each time Juno presses a limit with Bateman she believes it's a line he won't cross. Because in her mind the married couple have been ingrained to be a strong family for her baby, he doesn't rings alarm bells for her. I remember occasions in my teens while babysitting and talking to somewhat non-lame dads who would let me flip through their records, borrow books I liked, take too much time driving me home. These coupled with grown adults reminding you about your old soul and being wise beyond your years- can all really be a confusing recipe for disaster. And an adult knows what they're doing, the teen is emotionally twisted. In the end the adult is with that minor and they have to work on those boundaries that can prevent a curious kid from getting hurt

[JemimaDoesASMR]

Something I appreciate a lot about this movie is the way it makes you see Vanessa as the "bad guy" until you realise that actually Mark is. Watching it with a 2007 perspective, or the perspective of a teen/tween, you really think it's cool to be like Mark and that Vanessa is just being too uptight and she needs to find her chill.... honestly I think Juno was the beginning of my generation pushing against the caretaker woman and the childish husband trope.

[amberkumar]

I thought it was cute Vanessa was in an Alice in Chains tee shirt when they did the nursery because they had a common interest, but now I realize how clever this costuming choice was. She's wearing one of his tee shirts for painting because it's NOT important to her. Interesting.

[amityislandchum]

This is great video, but I think you should have mentioned that audience expectations played a huge part, due to established tropes. This is most significant in the Vanessa/Mark storyline. Sitcoms and movies have been based around the premise of "gorgeous, responsible woman puts up with her slovenly man-child of a husband" for so long that not only does it feel completely normal to see it in a movie, it's considered incredibly normal in real-life relationships. We didn't see their divorce coming, because that's never it ends.

[graymalkin]

Marc's outfit choices in the scenes are a perfect mirror of his changing attitude towards Juno and another subtle way we are being manipulated into thinking that they are getting closer. First, he's like a male version of Vanessa, only slightly removed from the dressed-in-all-white- framed couple pictures on the wall of the staircase. When they meet next he's still wearing a shirt but it's more casual and checkered- just as Juno's often are. In the last scene he's wearing some sort of band-shirt which makes him look significantly younger.

[MsJubjubbird]

I think the stepmother narrative is played on really well too.

[catabat]

This film came out right after I turned 13 and rewatching it throughout the years as I’ve grown and matured REALLY shines a light on Mark’s grooming tendencies and how munch of a loser he actually is. Teenagers love seeing adults that have the same “cool” interests as them and think adults that “sell out” for stability are lame, so it’s no wonder Juno gravitates towards Mark. However, that really powerful argument scene with Mark and Vanessa which really tackles the core of their dysfunctional marriage is something most teenagers aren’t mature enough to fully understand (Juno even says to her dad, “I’ve just been out dealing with things way beyond my maturity level”). I also love that Juno recognizes that just because you like cool shit doesn’t mean you’re a good, responsible adult, and that she can see that Vanessa is truly fit to be a mother, so she continues through with the plan to give Vanessa the child she’s always wanted.

God, I love this movie.

[alize]

I watched Juno in middle school when it was released. I rewatched it as an adult a few years ago and the perspective change was UNREAL. I went from seeing it as a naive but grown feeling teenaged girl to an actually grown adult woman. And the movie held up!

[millersam]

Any adult man wanting to be a teenager is a huge red flag. I always felt bad for his wife as she was basically already his mother. I'm glad she got her baby in the end, she'll be a good mom, she just didn't have an equal as a partner.

[Plunkcown]

another clever thing about the mark/juno thing is that teenage girls being into older men gets brought up several times earlier in the movie, in particular with the popular girls being into their teacher

[potatobugbite]

I also feel like an important part in the divorce surprise is not knowing when it’s going to happen. Yes, you can see that these people aren’t meant to be, but are they going to figure that out before they adopt a child? Knowing that there’s a bomb but it never seeming to go off is unnerving and the thought that they may figure it out after the point of no return is scary.

[bigpulgalokes]

I’m late but anyone else mentioned that the reason Juno tries not to get close to Michael Cera is because of his parents divorce. It’s also why she was so mad at mark at the end, because to her they seemed to be perfect and would be together forever. And it shattered her illusion of what she subconsciously wished. She doesn’t want to get attached because someone she loved already abandoned her aka her mom.

[PinkGrapefruit]

Oh! One other thing I wanted to mention is that I think a possibly under-discussed factor in Juno's mis-perception of Vanessa and Mark is socioeconomic class. Juno's family is blue collar, while Vanessa and Mark are obviously white collar. Mark even jokingly refers to them as "paranoid Yuppies, " but that is literally how Juno views Vanessa at first. And for Juno, from a less privileged background, Mark and Vanessa's life is *aspirational*. Part of it is her own parents' divorce making her project a happy marriage onto Mark and Vanessa where there is none, but another part is her being dazzled by their wealth. You see that in the scene where she's wandering around in their house upstairs, marveling at their beautiful possessions. I think it's also part of what draws her to visit them over and over. She likes the idea of her child growing up in that kind of environment. But part of why she misses the cracks in their marriage is because she struggles to perceive the imperfections behind what she has culturally been led to believe is a "perfect" life.

[amydearing]

Juno just wanted a mentor, not a boyfriend.

[Zimuahaha]

I usually hate movies about pregnancy, but this is one of my favorite movies ever. Diablo Cody is a genius.

[katelynbrown]

🥺🥺 I'd completely forgot about Pauly holding Juno in the hospital bed. It's very sweet.

[autumnshaymartin]

This was one of my favorite movies in middle school but something i never noticed until i was an adult: the hint that Mark has done this before. When Juno comes back upstairs crying, and then Mark follows behind her, the very first thing Vanessa does is look at Mark and say “What did you do?”. Like she already knew. Juno is told early on that Mark and Vanessa had an arrangement for adoption some time before Juno contacted them, but that the mom got “cold feet”. Good chance Mark sabotaged that too