Sightlines · how to watch
How to watch Juno
2007 · Jason Reitman · Juno on Sightlines
5 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 4 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.
On a first viewing
Watch for the season titles that break the film into chapters. (structure)
Autumn, winter, spring, summer arrive on screen and divide the pregnancy across a year. Each chapter opens with the weather changed and Juno's body further along.
Payoff: The film measures time in seasons rather than in plot events, so you track her growing up by the calendar instead of by incident.
Count how fast Page fires Cody's slang. (performance)
The lines come out at speed, fully formed, with no hesitation. Page keeps the tempo up in every room, including the ones where nobody is laughing with her.
Payoff: The wit is armor worn in public. Watch for the moments the speed drops, because that is where the character actually is.
Look at Juno's clothes and the objects in her room. (setting)
Flannel, oversized sweaters, secondhand layers, the hamburger phone. Nothing she owns is new or coordinated, and none of it is styled to make her look like a girl in a teen movie.
Payoff: Her self-presentation is assembled from cast-offs on purpose, which tells you how she wants to be seen before she says a word about it.
Compare the clutter of the MacGuff house with the Loring house. (staging)
One home has dog figurines, laundry, and worn furniture in every shot. The other is catalog-clean, with matched surfaces and space around every object.
Payoff: Class and character are staged in furniture, and the film lets you notice the difference yourself.
Listen for the unpolished singing and thin guitar. (sound)
Kimya Dawson and the Moldy Peaches supply most of the songs, recorded plainly with audible imperfections, and the mix always keeps dialogue on top of them.
Payoff: The music is put together the way Juno puts herself together, homemade and a little off-key, so the soundtrack characterizes rather than decorates.
The 4 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".
Carry this in: Watch Juno's jokes. Count how often a wisecrack arrives exactly where a feeling was about to be.