Sightlines · reception

How Juno was received

2007 · Jason Reitman · Juno on Sightlines

The arc

A Sundance-to-Oscars Cinderella story in 2007 — a $7.5M indie that grossed over $230M and won Diablo Cody the screenplay Oscar — followed by a swift backlash against its hyper-quirky dialogue; today it's been largely re-embraced as a warm, sharply written comfort classic of the late-2000s indie boom.

What’s debated

The eternal fight is over the dialogue — is 'honest to blog' and the wall-to-wall quirk charmingly distinctive or insufferably twee? — with a side debate about the film's abortion politics that had op-ed writers arguing from the moment it opened.

Its footprint

The hamburger phone became an instant icon (real-world sales reportedly spiked), the Moldy Peaches' 'Anyone Else But You' launched a thousand twee covers, and the chart-topping soundtrack basically set the template for indie-cute movie music for years after.

Where it stands

It's the definitive artifact of the 2000s quirky-indie moment — a film Letterboxd users cite half-nostalgically, half-ironically, but almost everyone has seen.

Did you know? Screenwriter Diablo Cody, a former blogger and stripper-memoirist discovered online, won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for her very first script — and the soundtrack's Moldy Peaches-heavy sound came from Elliot Page, who told Jason Reitman that's what Juno would listen to.