Brilliantly honest, suburban and quirky, Juno is the next arthouse flick from the middle of nowhere. Juno is a sixteen year old high school girl that falls pregnant to her best friend, a dorky athletics champ played by Michael Cera from the great Arrested Development. Having too much heart to deal with abortion, she decides adoption is the best option.

Far from the some uber conservative right wing reaction TV would have you expect, Juno’s parents take her pregnancy in their stride and support her in the adoption. Juno in the mean time looks for the perfect middle class family who can give her baby the support structure she can’t. While reading home maker magazines, she finds a classified ad seeking a baby, placed the perfect bourgeois yuppie couple. Here’s another highlight for Arrested Development fan, because the candidate dad is played by Jason Bateman.

Suddenly it’s all too idyllic. The wanting adoptive couple and the troubled teen seem a perfect match. But Juno quickly develops a friendship with the Bateman’s character Garner. This is when things get a bit pear shaped. Alison Janney, the prospective mother becomes enamored with childbirth, Bateman longs for his adolescence. Suddenly Juno is forced to reassess everything and take stock of what matters in her life.

Saying much more than that would wreck the whole thing. But if you liked Napoleon Dynamite or are a die hard Arrested Development fan like myself, Juno’s worth a crack. Michael Cera is brilliant in his role as the gawky boyfriend of Juno. Although you can’t help but feel he’s been a bit typecast as the indecisive dork. Equally brilliant is the girl who plays Juno, as a total ‘dude’ teenager that’s equally full of chutzpah as she is vulnerable.

Juno is a genuinely good movie which can’t be faulted. Whether it’s brilliant though I’m not so sure. I reckon it’s three and a bit stars out of five, but if quirky middle American comedy is your thing, give it a crack.