Jenny, Juno is a Corean romantic comedy released in 2005 that deals with teen pregnancy. Despite the rather serious subject matter, the film actually manages to keep a very lighthearted, primarily romantic, tone, which led to the ratings board to initially slap it with a 18+ rating, despite its otherwise innocent nature, with the argument that the film trivializes teen pregnancy and makes it seem rather easy. Eventually, the film ended up with a 15+ rating.
The story opens with Jenny (Park Minji), a high-achieving middle- schooler, discovering that she's knocked up and quickly informing Juno (Kim Hyesun), her middle-school boyfriend. There is brief ensuing drama, very similar to Apatow's Knocked Up, where the two decide to keep the baby and raise it together. From there it's a matter of keeping the pregnancy thing secret from parents and further building their relationship.
Something that immediately impressed me about Jenny, Juno, was how it was able to keep dramatic urgency, despite the fact that the conflict remains rather light throughout the first half of the film. Instead, we primarily see Jenny and Juno continuing their very sweet relationship and working to both help Jenny be a healthy mother and Juno be a responsible father. The trick to retaining drama, it turns out, is the unspoken threat of parental action should the parents find out about the baby. (And it should be no spoiler to note that they eventually do.) Overall, the story kind of reminds me of female-centric comic books popular in both Corea and Japan, as the story progression, action, scenes from flashbacks, have a very Asian comic book feel and some of the comedy draws from that sort of visualization. I also liked how it retained a light hearted cheerfulness throughout. When things are supposed to get serious, they do, but unfortunately, the drama is more than a little hamstrung, because of the film's continuing push to keep its very optimistic outlook intact. Ultimately, though, the end problem with the story lies in that we don't actually get to see any development in either Jenny and Juno or the people around them (and it should be the parents that we see the most development in as Jenny and Juno both seem like a pair of "magical" characters, who affect those around them). Also, the film really is rather unrealistic throughout, with little drama in the high school and setting up a rather pregnancy friendly situation for Jenny by giving her a wealthy family.
The film is modern and composed adequately. I was very impressed by the two young actors, both young teenagers themselves, although the roles weren't all that challenging. The supporting cast was well done too, although their characters were also more archetypal than complex. The music is understated with the exception of the theme song to the movie, which is rather catchy, but gets a little overplayed throughout.
Honestly, I have to say that I found this film rather refreshing, despite its rather notable problems, in both that it somehow manages to stay sunny throughout the first half and still retain its drama, as well as enjoying the romance between the two kids. That doesn't absolve the film of its problems with being so light-hearted that it floats away from dramatic grounding or its too-good-to-be-true atmosphere. And yet, somehow I found myself enjoying the film regardless. It's not great and is only arguably decent, but I liked it. It was cute. 7/10.
The story opens with Jenny (Park Minji), a high-achieving middle- schooler, discovering that she's knocked up and quickly informing Juno (Kim Hyesun), her middle-school boyfriend. There is brief ensuing drama, very similar to Apatow's Knocked Up, where the two decide to keep the baby and raise it together. From there it's a matter of keeping the pregnancy thing secret from parents and further building their relationship.
Something that immediately impressed me about Jenny, Juno, was how it was able to keep dramatic urgency, despite the fact that the conflict remains rather light throughout the first half of the film. Instead, we primarily see Jenny and Juno continuing their very sweet relationship and working to both help Jenny be a healthy mother and Juno be a responsible father. The trick to retaining drama, it turns out, is the unspoken threat of parental action should the parents find out about the baby. (And it should be no spoiler to note that they eventually do.) Overall, the story kind of reminds me of female-centric comic books popular in both Corea and Japan, as the story progression, action, scenes from flashbacks, have a very Asian comic book feel and some of the comedy draws from that sort of visualization. I also liked how it retained a light hearted cheerfulness throughout. When things are supposed to get serious, they do, but unfortunately, the drama is more than a little hamstrung, because of the film's continuing push to keep its very optimistic outlook intact. Ultimately, though, the end problem with the story lies in that we don't actually get to see any development in either Jenny and Juno or the people around them (and it should be the parents that we see the most development in as Jenny and Juno both seem like a pair of "magical" characters, who affect those around them). Also, the film really is rather unrealistic throughout, with little drama in the high school and setting up a rather pregnancy friendly situation for Jenny by giving her a wealthy family.
The film is modern and composed adequately. I was very impressed by the two young actors, both young teenagers themselves, although the roles weren't all that challenging. The supporting cast was well done too, although their characters were also more archetypal than complex. The music is understated with the exception of the theme song to the movie, which is rather catchy, but gets a little overplayed throughout.
Honestly, I have to say that I found this film rather refreshing, despite its rather notable problems, in both that it somehow manages to stay sunny throughout the first half and still retain its drama, as well as enjoying the romance between the two kids. That doesn't absolve the film of its problems with being so light-hearted that it floats away from dramatic grounding or its too-good-to-be-true atmosphere. And yet, somehow I found myself enjoying the film regardless. It's not great and is only arguably decent, but I liked it. It was cute. 7/10.
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