Coming-of-age meets coming-to-term, in a film that is refreshingly frank about sex and love, pokes fun at the clashes between age and class, and, even more subversivelycelebrates the pregnant possibilities of the non-nuclear family. Don’t tell this to Jamie Lynn Spears, but there can be some humor behind a 16-year-old getting pregnant. Juno, the second feature directed by Jason Reitman, is far from great but it has qualities of feeling that lift it far above the ordinary. That smart, hip, human comedy you’ve been waiting for all year? The one with dialogue like a sugar rush and performances like grace notes? It’s called Juno and it just arrived in blu ray movie theaters. Go forth and multiplex. With a charismatic lead performance from Page and a plaintive score of indie-rock songs, Juno seems poised to be the season’s youth-culture hit.
May 22