For the most part this movie isn’t scary, it might be extremely tense with a mysterious buildup, but never scary. So, then, why has this stayed with me more than real horror movies? Because what happens is out of the ordinary, it’s not “part of the plan.” We don’t even know the protagonists, and yet we sympathize with them because what is happening, shouldn’t be (and this statement excludes the unrealistic third act).
As far as theme goes, the Bible…
A thousand years from now Juno will be known as one of the greatest characters of all time. Having seen A Serious Man, Fargo, and Juno, it occurs to me that there is a second route to a great character (the first being casting Christoph Waltz), it is simply to have the setting be in Minnesota where everyone is funny.
The Coen Brothers did a very, very smart thing here where they took two of the coolest actors ever (Pitt and Clooney, who are smooth, handsome etc.) and made them total idiots. These parts were so well-written that they’d be funny regardless, but watching these guys especially made me laugh every time I saw them, which was virtually the whole time.
In the context of the Coenverse, this is a believable story, but there’s a bit with JK Simmons where he, basically acting as the audience, is told the events that we just watched for 20 minutes, and his reactions are everything.
