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Juno Symbolism

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Life is filled with tough decisions and choices. Without even realizing it, a person has to make a choice between two or more different options nearly every single day. Some choices are much bigger than others, especially when a teenage pregnancy is involved. The film Juno expresses this sentiment extremely well. Through the elements of symbolism and camera angles, the film portrays the theme of choice. Released on Christmas Day in 2007, Juno is a film that takes place in Minnesota over the course of a year, and tells the story of a quirky sixteen year old girl named Juno Macguff, played by Ellen Page, who becomes pregnant by her best friend, equally quirky and weird, track star Paulie Bleeker (played by Michael Cera), who everyone just calls …show more content…

Juno tells Leah that she will have an abortion, and she makes an appointment at her local clinic to “procure a hasty abortion” (Cody, 15). The day of Juno’s appointment, she runs into a girl that goes to her school, Su-Chin. She is standing outside the clinic, protesting abortion while chanting “all babies want to get borned” (Cody, 19). After brief conversation with Su-Chin, Juno walks into the clinic. Behind her, Su-Chin is trying to convince her not to get an abortion by saying “Your baby probably has a beating heart, you know. It can feel pain. And it has fingernails!” (Cody, 20). Juno promptly ignores Su-Chin, until she hears that last bit of information about fingernails. This makes her stop, and while she seems interested for a moment, it does not change her mind. After an odd conversation with the receptionist, Juno sits down to fill out the paper work that is given to her. However, as she looks around the room, she sees fingernails everywhere. The camera angles show close-ups of a girl nervously picking at her fingernails, another girl painting her nails, another tapping her fingers, and a man scratching his arm. Juno cannot focus on anything else but the fingernails she sees, and even hears, all around her. She becomes so distressed that she runs out of the abortion clinic while Su-Chin says “God appreciates your miracle!” …show more content…

After Juno leaves their house, there is a scene in which she is lying on the hood of her car outside of a convenient store, looking very thoughtful and most likely wondering she will do with her unborn child now. The camera zooms in closer to her face and she gets an idea. She climbs back into her car and finds an old, crumbled up Jiffy Lube receipt in the back seat. She grabs a pen and starts writing on the old receipt, but it is now shown until the end of the movie what she has written. The next scene is back at Mark and Vanessa’s house. Vanessa is sitting at the dining room table, looking extremely sad while drinking a glass of wine. Mark comes into the room and tells her that he was already contacted their lawyer and they will have what is called a “collaborative divorce,” in which the lawyer will be able to represent both of them. Suddenly, there is a knock on the door, but by the time they open the door, they see Juno’s blue minivan driving away with a screech. Vanessa looks down and sees the yellow receipt that Juno has left. It is still a mystery to the viewer what the note actually says. Later on, after Juno has given birth to a healthy baby boy, there is a scene that shows Vanessa at home with the baby. The camera shows all the details of the nursery room, including the note that Juno had left on the Loring’s front porch the night she found out they were

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