Juno MacGuff – Juno (2007)
From an Academy Award winning screenplay by Diablo Cody, Juno MacGuff is as rare as they come. Played with impressive tenacity by Ellen Page, Juno is a formidably intelligent, irrepressibly verbal teenager whose life is shaken to its core when she becomes pregnant. Evidently ill-prepared for her liaison with high school friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), Juno shoulders the responsibility for her actions, makes her decisions, and ultimately locates a couple to adopt her developing bundle of joy.
What follows is a moving exploration of this teenage girl dealing with all of the consequences of those events – and that is exactly what makes Juno such a well-written rarity. Firstly, she is a fully formed human being, with history, preferences, flaws and a learning curve. Secondly, her situation leads to her depiction as an autonomous individual. She goes to great pains to ensure she is making informed choices with regard to her own body and the unplanned child growing within it, and has little tolerance for any person that would question the nature of that, and what she is doing.
The very idea of not having physical sovereignty is wholly abhorrent to her, and something she considers to be utterly nonsensical. She is entirely right, of course, but displays an attitude that is sadly uncommon on the modern screen.
