Otherwise, it was like a lobotomized _Ghostworld_, but mixed with the embarrassingly bad _My First Mister_, a horrible shit fest of a movie starring Albert Brooks and Leelee Sobieski (yep, you read that right) about ... yet *another* offbeat, quirky, precocious teenage girl -- this one with a penchant for poetry, goth stuff (as Hollywood's defining it), and the mandatory smirking sarcasm that comes with this territory of character -- from 2001. Never saw _My First Mister_? Good. Don't.
Here is my problem with Juno: In a recent interview, Mike Judge (_Idiocracy, King of the Hill, Office Space_) complained that too many writers today substitute wry, droll sarcasm for humor. That's why he tries to avoid smirking sarcasm in his characters (except when he's sending up the convention). "It's like every writer wants their character to be Murray from the Mary Tyler Moore show," Judge complained. Everyone says something "wryly," or is "a droll wit," and is also somehow quirky. Juno exhibits way too many smug Murray-isms, but with a dollop of post-Ghotworld-ness on for good measure.
-B.
Max B. Sawicky described the template of every Lifetime Movie Network movie, or episode of Degrassi High, when he wrote:
"You aren't a 15 year old girl. My daughter is, and she loves it. The protagonist is smart, funny, articulate. Encounters adversity, maneuvers through a variety of clueless adults, gets back together with her true love in the end."