When I found out Juno was nominated for a few Oscars, including the Best Actress gong, I figured I'd hit a winner. I managed to wangle a couple of free tickets for me and my other half to see it last night at the cinema, despite his protests that is, and off we went. Did I like it? Read on and see...

Juno tells us the story of a young girl named, funnily enough, Juno. Juno is a 16 year old school girl who, after having sex with her friend Paulie Bleeker, becomes pregnant. Her family are of course shocked, and Juno decides that she doesn't want to keep the baby. So she searches for a young couple and stumbles across Vanessa and Mark Loring, a wealthy couple desperate for a child. Will everything go to plan for Juno? And how will the young girl cope with pregnancy?

I knew the basic plot outline of the film before seeing it, but I was much more impressed by the film than I had expected to me. It surprised in several respects, which is good as I hate being disappointed when I see a film! The best surprise for me was the lead actress Ellen Page, who played Juno. Although Ellen is actually 20 years old, she portrays a 16 year old very well, and looks that age too! She manages to find the perfect niche between sarcasm and comedy in her acting, with some of he deadpan lines being pulled off perfectly. She does very well acting out pregnancy, looking very authentic with a superbly realistic prosthetic bump. It is really hard not to like Juno. She is funny, pretty, talks incredibly fast and is quite an independent young woman, determined to enrich someone elses lives through her child. A pretty amazing thing to do for someone hey?

Another 2 great performances for me were those of Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman who play the couple wanting to adopt Juno's baby. Garner's character was not as warm and fuzzy as previous roles she has played (13 Going on 30 and Catch and Release) and I didn't especially warm to her but she did grow on me as the film went on. She had a good on-screen chemistry with Bateman, whose character I constantly thought through the film had a sinister side to him. You really could believe in them as a married couple, and Garner especially plays the anguish of a woman desperate to be a mother incredibly well. It actually made me sit there and be grateful that I had Harry in my life! There was a particularly touching scene between Juno and Vanessa two-thirds of the way through the film which was really quite emotional to watch, and beautifully

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