Oh, once in a while they are. But it's been a while.

Little Miss Sunshine was mostly happy.

And so is Juno, mostly.

True, but I don't think Juno is a real contender for the best picture.

I was pretty much "eh" on The Savages. Its a dry indie film of the type that is pretty overdone these days. Lots of slightly off-kilter shots of people looking blank or worried or confused, set to extremely low-key acoustic singer/songwriter music and occasional score that's heavy on the whimsy. I didn't really care about any of the characters at all. And the only moment I really enjoyed is entirely attributable to Kurt Weill.

I felt much the same about The Squid and the Whale, but at least it had that awesomely weird kid.

I have a question about Juno.

I read a few adoption related blogs and those people all, like every single one, hated the movie and thought it was deceptive and did a real disservice to pregnant teenagers. But everyone everywhere else, here, for example, has seemed to really enjoy the movie - thought is was great, in fact.

ANyway, I'm just curious about how two groups of people could have such a different reaction to the same movie. I'd like to see it but not if I'm going to hate it, you know?

I'm sure it was completely unrealistic about adoption, but I would imagine it was unrealistic in the way that almost anything in a movie was unrealistic.

I read a few adoption related blogs and those people all, like every single one, hated the movie and thought it was deceptive and did a real disservice to pregnant teenagers. But everyone everywhere else, here, for example, has seemed to really enjoy the movie - thought is was great, in fact.

That's interesting. My aunt, who adopted two children, absolutely loved the movie. What specifically did they find deceptive?

I'm sure it was completely unrealistic about adoption, but I would imagine it was unrealistic in the way that almost anything in a movie was unrealistic.

I agree with this.

Oh, thank goodness. I was afraid I hadn't made any sense at all! But you know that things in movies are always less boring than things in real life, so I don't really think you can do adoption with a phone call and a handshake (which is essentially how it was portrayed in Juno), but the real life stuff is probably much more tedious to watch.

so I don't really think you can do adoption with a phone call and a handshake (which is essentially how it was portrayed in Juno), but the real life stuff is probably much more tedious to watch.

I can handwave all of that away with the presence of the lawyer in the scene, assuming their is more tedious legal stuff that happened off-screen.

What specifically did they find deceptive?

One of my favorite blogs, written by a woman who, along with her partner, have domestically adopted 2 little girls, had this to say: [link] Here's the summary:

Though one might say the movie was not "unrealistic" (Juno's lack of legal or other representation, her isolation from others who share her experience, her detachment from grief after placement), neither did the film problematize any of this or suggest any alternate versions of the story.

In the end, the film heartily endorsed the agenda of a return to the bad-old "baby-scoop" days and thus yes, a return the days (if they are indeed over) of women's sexuality being shameful and not within women's own control. And thus yes, a return to the days (if they are indeed over) when abortion was not readily or safely available.

If you knew nothing about adoption going into the film, you'd learn that adoption is sweet and birth mothers have no issues. If you had fairly mainstream knowledge of adoption, you'd leave with nothing new. But if you know about adoption from any part of its the insides, you might well judge, like me, that it does a terrible disservice to the field

I just thought the different reactions were really interesting. Obviously, she has way more invested in adoption than the average viewer, but her description of the movie makes it sound so...I don't know...like Juno just drops off her baby and rides off into the sunset to live happily ever after.

Perhaps I need to wait until I'm not pregnant to be able to enjoy a movie like this.

They don't really make it explicit, but if Juno didn't have any feelings about giving up her baby, the movie would lose an awful lot of its conflict. It would be a really weird movie if it was like Juno was giving up some kind of object that meant nothing to her.