Movie Analysis - Juno

Movie Analysis Rough Draft

Juno is about a young girl who finds herself pregnant at sixteen. The movie is quite unlike others that talk about teen pregnancy because Juno ends up giving her baby up for adoption. Her decision doesn't come lightly though, after Juno first finds out about the baby she decides right away to 'nip it in the bud' and terminate the pregnancy. The baby’s father, Paulie, agrees with her and so Juno goes to the abortion clinic where she finds one of her friends from school outside protesting. That does not stop Juno and she still goes in, it is not until she is sitting down filling out the paperwork which is required that she stops to look at this place. All of the noises around and the fact that the building ‘smelled like a dentist' and the dingy look of the building make her leave the abortion clinic. This is another 'beginning' to the movie because she decides to give her baby away, and this is the center of the whole movie, in a way this is what builds up to most of the elements of communication which I would like to speak about. I would now like to take a look at the two communication elements that I have chosen for this project, nonverbal communication, and relationships.

 The first communication element which I am going to discuss is in the nonverbal communication category. One scene, that is actually a couple of them over a span of a few seconds, shows the lady, Vanessa, that will be adopting Juno's baby, placing flowers in a nice position and laying magazines out. This is part of the artifactual nonverbal communication. She straightens out a lot of things in her house to make it look 'perfect'. She is doing this to give Juno a great first impression of her and Mark, her husband. She has been trying for a baby for so long she probably wanted to make sure nothing goes wrong and by making her house look 'perfect' she might feel that she has some kind of control of the situation. I know I often do this when I have people coming over to my house, even if it is just my friends, because I wouldn't want them to see my house so messy.

 Another nonverbal communication scene I would like to discuss is the one where Juno tells Paulie that she is pregnant. The look on his face basically says it all. He looks scared and shocked; he also looks like he wants to run away with the others runners that just ran by his house. This is something that no teenage boy wants to go through and he is too stunned to say anything for a minute. This is a great example of facial nonverbal communication. Paulie is saying all of these things through his facial expression he has after he is told he is going to be a father.

 I use facial expressions a lot, for instance, I can just be standing and thinking about a memory that made me upset and I'll get a frown on my face or if I think of something happy I'll get a smile of my face. I have caught myself doing this quite often while I'm standing at my register at work. Facial expressions can tell people how you are feeling unless you are very good at hiding your emotions.

Another communication theory I observed in Juno was the relationship rules theory. There is a certain part in this movie where Juno gets close to Mark and I believe that Mark sees their close friendship in a different way than Juno does.

Juno and Mark start to hang out while Mark’s wife is at work and they develop a friendship. Towards the end of the movie where Juno goes to visit him while he is in the basement area they somehow end up dancing. Mark breaks their friendship by crossing very specific lines that Juno did not want broken. He dances really close to her and tells her that he is leaving his wife, Vanessa. Juno freaks out and says that’s not how it was supposed to happen and they end up in a big argument that eventually leads to the end of their friendship because Mark wanted them to be more, at least that is how I saw it, and Juno had not been thinking that way.

I think that this rule is broken a lot when people like each other because they read too much into what the other person does and starts assuming that the other person likes them the same way as they like that person.

The last scene I have chosen is at the end of the movie after Juno gives Vanessa her baby. Juno and Paulie are together finally and are singing. They are showing some of the signs of the romantic rules. They are expressing similar interests by playing the same song and singing different parts of the same song. I also believe they enhance each other’s self worth and self esteem, because of what they both had to go through. They will be there for each other and bring each other up when they are down.

I personally use these relationship rules in my own relationship and believe if you don’t have these things your relationship would not work.

So in conclusion I think this movie shows a lot about nonverbal communication and relationships, you can see this from the beginning of the movie until the end. A lot of people don’t see this movie as anything great but I think the writer of this story did an excellent job of showing all the different ways of communicating. I think from this movie you can learn to watch your nonverbal communication because if you don’t it could lead to serious consequences, and that you should really watch how you act around friends and ‘lovers’. I have seen many times where my friend’s think someone is into them but it turns out they weren’t, my friends had read too much into the nonverbal communication and therefore embarrassed themselves because of it. I have seen the relationship rules many times, most of my friends are getting married and having children now so they are gaining more and more similar interests and are now having to learn how to better be the other persons better half.