Best motion picture of the year, "Juno" (Fox Searchlight)
A Mandate Pictures/Mr. Mudd Production
Lianne Halfon, Mason Novick and Russell Smith, Producers
This is the first nomination for all three.
"Can’t we just kick it old school? I could just put the baby in a basket and send it your way.
You know, like Moses in the reeds."
Meet Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) – a confidently frank teenage girl who calls the shots with a
nonchalant cool and an effortless attitude as she journeys through an emotional nine-month
adventure into adulthood. Quick witted and distinctively unique, Juno walks Dancing Elk High's
halls to her own tune - preferably anything by The Stooges - but underneath her tough no
nonsense exterior is just a teenage girl trying to figure it all out.
While most girls at Dancing Elk are updating their MySpace page or shopping at the mall, Juno
is a whip-smart Minnesota teen living by her own rules. A typically boring afternoon becomes
anything but when Juno decides to have sex with the charmingly unassuming Bleeker (Michael
Cera). Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, she and best friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby) hatch a
plan to find Juno’s unborn baby the perfect set of parents courtesy of the local Penny Saver.
They set their sights on Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner), an
affluent suburban couple who are longing to adopt their first child. Luckily, Juno has the support
of her dad and stepmother (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney). After the initial shock that their
daughter has been sexually active with the unlikely "virile" Bleeker, the family bands together to
help Juno. Dad Mac accompanies Juno to size up the prospective adoptive parents to make sure
they are not a couple of "wing nuts" while stepmother Bren provides emotional support as Juno
fights the prejudices of underage pregnancy. While fall becomes winter and winter turns to
spring, Juno moves closer and closer to her due date. Juno’s physical changes mirror her
personal growth while the veneer of Mark and Vanessa’s idyllic life starts to show signs of
cracking. With a fearless intellect far removed from the usual teen angst, Juno conquers her
problems head-on, displaying a youthful exuberance both smart and unexpected.
A Fox Searchlight Pictures presentation, JUNO is directed by Jason Reitman (THANK YOU
FOR SMOKING) from a script by Diablo Cody (Candy Girl) and is a Mandate Pictures/ Mr.
Mudd production. Producers are Mason Novick and Mr. Mudd partners Lianne Halfon, John
Malkovich and Russell Smith. Mandate’s Joe Drake and Nathan Kahane executive produced
with Daniel Dubiecki, Reitman’s partner at Hard C. Jim Miller, who brought the project into
Mandate, serves as co-producer along with the company’s Kelli Konop and Brad Van Arragon.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
When I was twelve, my parents decided to adopt a child. I grew up in a very Loring-like residence
with incense sticks, plexiglass enclosed tchotchkes, and framed portraits of my family posing all
dressed in white (yup, that was us). One morning, we assembled in the living room where my
sister and I were informed that we would be visited by a social worker that would deem whether
or not we were an appropriate home for an adopted child. It was an audition of how good a family
we were.
Of course, now I look back and realize we were a shoe-in… a happy loving affluent family who
were adopting for all the right reasons. But at the time, I remember the pressure. Spending hours
in front of this social worker, acting like I was in the British novelization of my own life. Hello
sister, would you like to share my orange juice?
The story of Juno comes from Diablo’s childhood when one of her closest friends in high school
became pregnant and decided to take the baby to term. Often, she is asked what gave her the idea
to make this into a movie. The first scene she ever thought of – the kernel of Juno – is that
meeting at the Loring house, where Juno meets the potential parents of her child.
There is something incredibly complex about the character dynamics of that scene.
• -A middle class father who would normally only enter one of these homes to
service the heater is now being treated like royalty.
• -A thirty-year-old man, terrified by entering the chapter of parenthood, is
balancing between the placation of his wife and his fascination with this unique
teenager.
• -A thirty-year-old woman, incapable of having a child of her own, has turned to
the teenager she would normally ignore at the mall. She walks on eggshells,
hoping to earn the trust of a girl that thinks of pregnancy as an inconvenience.
• -A tiny sixteen-year-old girl who would normally be egging the community gates
is now auditioning the adults.
At the end of the day, Juno is not a movie about teenage pregnancy as much as it is about the
delicate balance of these relationships. Somehow, Diablo’s script is able to approach each and all
of the characters with sophisticated realism and respect.
There are so many things that make a film work. The mechanics of filmmaking are too
complicated to single out any one thing. However, when I think of that scene and the approach to
these characters, I can’t help feel that Diablo and I, in one way or another, have sat on either side
of the living room in that scene. It is that combination of experiences. That collaboration of
perspectives that made the film resonate not only with humor, but with warmth.
Jason Reitman
WRITER’S STATEMENT
My name is Diablo Cody-- well, not really. But who cares? Artifice is typically encouraged in
Hollywood, even rewarded. This is a town where our "all-natural" golden girls are (literally)
peroxided to the teeth and tanned into non-putrescible leather. A place where sworn enemies
swallow their bile and swap "power hugs" on Highland. Even the sky looks like a matte painting
on blue-hot afternoons, when the clouds are as firmly set as Jayne Mansfield's hair and the sun
blazes immodestly. It's all pretty cool, but it sure as hell ain't real.
That's just one reason why I'm still slack-jawed with shock that JUNO-- a funky little movie that
wears its heart on both sleeves-- ever came into being. I wrote the script back in Minnesota, a
circumstance which should have logically counted as a strike against me. Sometimes I wrote at
my kitchen table, sometimes I wrote at the local Target, sometimes I'd sneak a few blocks of
dialogue during my precious 15-minute breaks at work. JUNO became my secret passion, and I
anticipated our time together like a horny schoolgirl. I don't know if anyone believed that I could
actually write a movie, and neither did I. Unlike the moist-browed screenwriters pimping their
wares in cruel Burbank, I wrote in a comfortable vacuum.
Ironically, the person who brought this wholly Midwestern script to life was a quintessential
Hollywood boy: Jason Reitman. I mean, he's the scion of a friggin' filmmaking dynasty! This is a
guy who grew up knowing the Ghostbusters personally (and if you were a kid in the '80s, you
know that's totally rad.) And yet, when we first met above a gun shop on Sunset, he radiated a
warmth and authenticity that's in short supply out here. He just seemed way too cool-- too real--
to be an A-list director's son. Put it this way: I spent my college years watching MTV and
leeching off my poor middle-class parents. Meanwhile, Reitman, the so-called "child of
privilege," sold ad space in calendars at USC to fund his first short films. His work ethic belies
his pedigree.
Reitman and I connected instantly, even though he jokes that he was scared of my tattoos.
Frankly, I was scared of his talent. I'd mustered up some confidence in the script by then, but I
couldn't have anticipated that someone like Jason-- an incredible writer in his own right-- would
put his own stuff on hold to direct JUNO. But he did, and within months, we were rolling in
Vancouver. It was fully ridiculous.
There are no words to describe what it's like to watch actors like Ellen Page and Allison Janney
breathing life into the inert "blue baby" that is an unproduced screenplay. I'd hang by the
monitors for hours, mentally freaking out. It's hard to say what was more joyful...actually writing
JUNO, or surrendering the script to these talented people.
I've written other screenplays since JUNO and I hope, God willing, that I get to write more. But
as Jason has frequently reminded me, you only get one first film. And like Juno MacGuff, who
(improbably) finds true love at 16, I was fortunate enough to have been "deflowered"
cinematically in the nicest possible way. The entire process-- from writing, to production, to
release--was so warm, so exhilarating, and most of all, so real.
Diablo Cody
80th Academy Awards Oscar Nominations 2008
Best Picture
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country For Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Best Animated Feature
Persepolis, Ratatouille, Surf's Up
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