"I'm leaving Venessa [for you?]"

January 9, 2008 6:02 PM

This is a question about the movie Juno (probably spoilers inside)

So I saw Juno last weekend, and I liked it a lot. But I did leave somewhat confused as to what the relationship between Juno's character and the adoptive dad (Jason Bateman's character) was. People all around me were whispering 'oh god' and 'eww' and such, but I wasn't sure what to think. It wasn't overtly romantic, but it sounds like he is hinting that he wants to leave his wife for Juno.

Perhaps an unanswerable question since I assume none of you were a part of the film's creation, but I'm still curious.

posted by Corduroy to media & arts (53 comments total)

Well, the relationship is ambiguous, I think. There was some mutual attraction, which may squick people out because of the age difference plus cheating, but in the end Juno functioned more as a catalyst for him to leave Vanessa than anything else.
posted by chinston at 6:05 PM on January 9, 2008

The movie seemed sloppily put together, but what I got was he was chasing his youth, and they connected over the things he liked, and she was all alone with her problems, so they had a brief moment of romantic tingle.
posted by milarepa at 6:06 PM on January 9, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I think he was more romantically attracted to her than vice-versa. She really enjoyed hanging out with him, but I don't think she consciously thought of it as romantic/sexual attraction. She seemed pretty clueless about the potential ickiness in the situtation. He seemed to really think about leaving Vanessa for Juno, though clearly he left his marriage anyway. Like chinston said, I think the bond he had with Juno (so much in common) acted as a catalyst for his decision to leave Vanessa.
posted by bassjump at 6:12 PM on January 9, 2008

Yeah, I think it was to illustrate his immaturity, but I agree that it was strange.
posted by null terminated at 6:12 PM on January 9, 2008

It wasn't overtly romantic, but it sounds like he is hinting that he wants to leave his wife for Juno.

For sure- the line "What do you think of me as?" (or was it, "How do you see me?") totally gave it away.

I think he was more romantically attracted to her than vice-versa.

Not sure about that- she was definitely attracted to him, too, but in a teenage girl way: talking about how cool he is all the time, and there's one part where she puts on lip gloss right before she goes in the house...
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:15 PM on January 9, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

I think there was a hint that he was romantically interested in her, but it was never spelled out explicitly. I wasn't mad for the movie as a whole, but I actually prefer that the relationship was left ambiguous. I think Bateman's character was the best sketched in the film, and, in some ways, I wish the film was about him. He has a stronger character arc than Juno does.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:24 PM on January 9, 2008

I was just about to mention what ThePinkSuperhero said, she did put that lipstick on when she was rushing over to his house, but I think it was much more innocent than his attraction.
posted by harrumph at 6:28 PM on January 9, 2008

I think she thought he was really cool. He thought she was a throwback to his youth. But when it boiled down to it he wasn't even mature enough for her, never mind Vanessa.

I thought the way that Juno learned that you shouldn't judge a book by it's hipness was one of the central messages of the film.
posted by fshgrl at 6:34 PM on January 9, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I was just about to mention what ThePinkSuperhero said, she did put that lipstick on when she was rushing over to his house

In a slight derail, it wasn't lipstick; it was lip gloss. Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers, to be exact (cult favorite- provides a light tint of color). I am such a lip gloss addict that even my boyfriend knew it on sight, just from the color of the tube.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:37 PM on January 9, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

i think there was a couple of things going on here. firstly, juno is quite intelligent and because of that, pretty mature for her age on a lot of levels. her interaction with adults comes more from a place of equality (because of her intelligence) then your average kid-adult interaction. patrick (jason bateman's character), on the other hand, in his need to hang onto his youth, is (in that respect) pretty immature. he was attracted to juno's seeming maturity but also, because she is younger, juno's interest in him (which i think was mostly platonic) stroked his ego in that here was this younger girl who found him interesting and wanted to hang out with him and by god, he still has it and he's not just some old fart. she represented to him the youth he could still have if he left vanessa and his sell-out, suburban, about-to-be-a-dad-and-has-to-grow-up life behind.
posted by violetk at 6:56 PM on January 9, 2008

According to Diablo Cody, she specifically wrote that it was Dr Pepper lip gloss in the script, and a PA had to drive from the set in Canada to the United States to buy some for that scene. So I bet she'd be glad to hear you recognized the brand.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:57 PM on January 9, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I pretty firmly believe that Juno is one of if not the best movie of the decade. I agree with the former posters who say that she stroked his ego and he thought more of it than she did. I think she liked the idea of knowing something for sure and not having to worry, and feeling like she had some control. I also think she liked having something "Safe" and "normal", until he crushed it.
posted by TomMelee at 7:00 PM on January 9, 2008

The squickiness came very early for me. You could even sense it from the too-intimate conversation the two of them have at the top of the stairs after Juno swipes some of Vanessa's perfume, but it kicked in fully around the time they were pseudo-cuddling on the couch while watching obscure horror movies (which, by the way, also represents for me the apex of the painfully hip part of the movie). When you think about it, that over-familiarity plays out in a bunch of ways—the way he always just lets Juno in without asking why she's around, or how Juno stops asking where Vanessa is fairly early on in the movie, or even the way they banter and basically talk to each other as equals. By the time Juno's calling him from the school payphone ("I just wanted to say hi"), all the pieces are in place.
posted by chrominance at 7:02 PM on January 9, 2008

All of the stuff above. Especially comments 2 and 3 and violetk. I certainly do not think she was attracted to him, but when she says something like "I just wanted to be a piece of furniture in you're life" or whatever kind of reinforces that, I don't think you can also fully discount Juno desire for normalcy in her attraction to to him. I remember her wondering several times about if people can ever stay together, and he is sort of the counter to all her cynicism. Except it turns out he isn't, of course.
posted by absalom at 7:07 PM on January 9, 2008

I actually suspect Jason Bateman's character is loosely based on Diablo Cody's ex-husband, who is also a bandmember-turned-jingle-writer. I'm somewhat friendly with the guy, so I might have seen Bateman's character a little more sympathetically than he came off in the film. He is, after all, a guy who has been pushed away from his youthful ambitions and into a very dull, very dry life by a wife who is quite obsessed with having a baby, but unsympathetic enough to his interests to have him pack up all his favorite items and put them in a closet-sized room. His interest in Juno, who thinks he's pretty cool and shares some of his interests, rang pretty genuine to me, as did the crisis of conscience it caused -- his realization that he was starting to live a life he didn't want, and, were he to adopt a child, there would be no going back.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:07 PM on January 9, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Don't forget the scene where Juno's stepmom tells her it's not a good idea for her to be at Mark & Vanessa's house without Vanessa and she says something to the effect of "why not?"

I think she probably understood the obvious reason, but didn't think that was an issue, since a non-platonic thing with Mark wasn't really her prerogative. I also think the movie demonstrates that she wouldn't have done that to the relationship of her baby's parents, at any time. Instead, her presence simply catalyzed Mark to change his way of life, though I do wonder whether she would have insisted her visits to him were okay if she knew what effect she was having.

p.s. See Hard Candy if you want to experience psycho-vengeance on the Marks of the world

*adds Dr. Pepper chapstick to shopping list* omg it's been way too long.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 7:07 PM on January 9, 2008

I think there's definitely something there (big spoilers, of course):

(1) When Juno first meets the adoptive parents, she goes upstairs and at one point she and Jason Bateman start playing the guitar in his music room. Vanessa comes in and gets super mad at Jason Bateman ("what are you doing in here?!"). At that point in the film, you think that Vanessa is just an uptight pain in the ass.

(2) When Juno goes over to Jason Bateman's house the second time, the two are hanging out and Vanessa gets home from work. Jason Bateman freaks out and tries to get her out of there before Vanessa gets in. Juno is like "what's the problem?" Then Vanessa comes in and gets really anxious and upset again. On the way out of the house that time, Juno sees all the baby stuff and says "aren't you going to have a shower?" Vanessa says her friends aren't likely to throw her one because they are not sure Juno will really go through with it. Juno promises not to flake out, but Vanessa says they had an experience before. Jason Bateman chimes in really quickly and says "yeah, cold feet." It seemed to me like maybe there was something else there.

(3) In the scene that creeped everyone out, Jason Bateman shows Juno that comic with the pregnant superhero, which itself is pretty weird (as it seems to fetishize pregnancy, and to me definitely hints that he is attracted to Juno). Then he tries to make a move and Juno freaks out, at which point I think he says something like "oh I'm such an idiot." Then she takes off, sees Vanessa on the way out, and Vanessa asks Juno what is wrong and pointedly asks Jason Bateman "what did you do?" Jason Bateman tries to say it is just Juno's hormones.

That chain of events suggests to me that Vanessa was suspicious of Jason Bateman because he had messed up before. The "messed up before," I think, may have been the cause of the cold feet for the previous mother (hence the "did it again" comment). Which explains why Vanessa was so freaked out when Jason Bateman was so friendly with Juno at the initial meeting, and why Jason Bateman was so weird about Juno leaving when Vanessa got home at the second meeting, and why Vanessa was so suspicious and Jason Bateman so defensive at the third meeting.

Of course, this may all just be an absurd stretch, Vanessa may have been uptight about that stuff just because she was worried Juno would flake on them and didn't want Jason Bateman messing it up by becoming personally involved, and the Juno-Jason Bateman thing is probably purposely ambiguous, but I think it's a reasonable interpretation.
posted by AgentRocket at 7:08 PM on January 9, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

I can confirm, having read the script released by Fox Searchlight (previously on MeFi, too lazy to look it up) that the Dr Pepper Lip gloss is in there. In my mind, of course, that entirely changes the tone (or perhaps it complicates it - we could have a whole discussion about whether lip gloss is lipstick for romantic purposes).
To me, the relationship was (at least throughout most of the movie) stereotypically geeky - that is, asexual. The outcome of that relationship became counterintuitive in that it forced Juno to realize she was mature enough to enter a serious romantic relationship (note that she dodged that opportunity with Beeker previously) and it forced Mark to realize that he was not mature enough to be a father. Juno doesn't cry when she finds out that she's pregnant, when she tells her parents, when she's pissed at Beaker, at the ultrasound, etc. She only cries when she learns Mark and Vanessa are splitting up. She gets upset, and then (BIG spoiler alert) violates her fantasy that her child will be raised by the traditional nuclear family. Cody is thus implying that such a fantasy is part of her childhood naivete.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 7:13 PM on January 9, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

If it helps, the official screenplay is available here. Perhaps there are clues in the screen direction?
posted by sharkfu at 7:16 PM on January 9, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

Thanks for the link sharkfu! I didn't realize screenplays are released like that.
posted by Corduroy at 7:20 PM on January 9, 2008

It is funny you asked this question. I saw the movie last week with my wife. As we watched the flick both of us had different ideas of his designs on her. We bet a dollar on what his motivations were, my wife bet that he had sexual feelings for her and I bet that she was a way for him to regain his fading youth by being friends.

It went back and forth for both of us till their last encounter. At this point I threw in the towel and gave my wife the dollar. The reason was that if you looked closely at the computer screen he was looking at, right as Juno rung the door bell the last time they met, he was looking at her MySpace page- there were pictures of her step mom and dog collection on the screen- his attraction to her was, at this point, changed in my mind. He was up to something in his head far and away from being a caring older friend. He also admittedly questioned his motivations when her response to his intentions to leave his wife made him ask himself what he was thinking.
posted by bkeene12 at 7:21 PM on January 9, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

I think that Juno has the kind of crush on Jason Bateman's character that teenaged girls get on guys who are totally inaccessible. It's the same reason that teenagers get obsessed with rock stars and other celebrities who they'll never meet. He appreciates her pop culture interests and treats her like an adult and is a cool, creative adult who's very unlike the uncool adults in her life. He's also safe to have a crush on, because he's not going to reciprocate. And when he does reciprocate, her safe crush suddenly becomes something really squicky and dangerous. Plus, she has a huge investment in the idea of Mark and Vanessa as a perfect family, and because she has pretty silly and immature ideas about what a perfect family looks like, she's hugely thrown by the revelation that Mark is fallible. (I think the entire point of the movie is Juno coming to realize that "perfect families" don't exist, and that good enough families look like Juno's family, or like the family that Vanessa is about to create. An important step in this process is the revelation that Mark and Vanessa are not the wonderful couple that they appear like in their photo in Pennysaver.)

To Mark, Juno represents his lost youth. She's not tied down by responsibilities or social conventions, at least as far as he can tell. She doesn't want anything from him, as far as he can tell, other than mix tapes. (She actually has a huge emotional investment in seeing him and Vanessa as perfect parents, but he's too self-involved and clueless to realize how much Juno wants from him.) Vanessa represents to him the tedious demands of adulthood, and Juno is his fantasy of the freedom of youth. It doesn't help matters that she's cute and smart and very cool. Probably, Mark was never as cute and smart and cool as Juno, but she's what he fantasizes his adolescent self was like. And he doesn't want to give it up. He wants to be the kind of guy who's with Juno, not Vanessa.

I don't think that Mark would actually have tried to pursue anything romantic or sexual with Juno. But he's momentarily transfixed by the freedom and possibility that she represents.
posted by craichead at 7:35 PM on January 9, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

When was it that Juno came to think of Patrick and Venessa as the perfect couple? When she walks up their stairs and sees their pictures she chuckles, sort of degradingly. And she seems to wander into their insecurities as a couple a few times befrore Patrick says he is leaving. It sort of took me by surprise the way she reacted to it, thinking of them as perfect?

Maybe it was when she saw Venessa playing with the kids in the mall?
posted by Corduroy at 7:44 PM on January 9, 2008

In the screenplay, Mark's looking at a horror movie site, not Juno's Myspace...
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 7:48 PM on January 9, 2008

What craichead said - that was my interpretation too. And Juno's stepmom nicely telegraphs the "safe crush becoming reciprocal" squickiness in the scene where she tells Juno that Mark is a married man and Juno has overstepped a boundary. Juno has little inkling of how she is being perceived by Mark.

I thought the lipsmacker application scene was completely in character for a teenage girl - it's a flirtatious gesture, sure, but so transparently young particularly considering the context of the situation she, Mark and Vanessa are in.
posted by raxast at 8:21 PM on January 9, 2008

It may be possible to ask the source directly. Diablo Cody is a member of a forum I regularly visit, and she has posted fairly frequently in the Juno Thread. She even answered what Vanessa ended up naming the baby :)

Of course, she's a lot busier these days, so not around as much.

Like others, I read it as he was certainly at least a little interested in Juno, and she got caught up in the "coolness" of this older guy.
posted by aclevername at 8:30 PM on January 9, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

In the screenplay, Mark's looking at a horror movie site, not Juno's Myspace...

It's quite possible they changed this during shooting to accentuate the relationship, though. Worth finding out if so, because that would be a really neat detail (I remember wondering what was on the screen but didn't see it for long enough to find out).
posted by chrominance at 8:33 PM on January 9, 2008

Vanessa says her friends aren't likely to throw her one because they are not sure Juno will really go through with it. Juno promises not to flake out, but Vanessa says they had an experience before. Jason Bateman chimes in really quickly and says "yeah, cold feet." It seemed to me like maybe there was something else there.

My impression was definitely that the dad character was the one who had gotten cold feet last time, not the pregnant girl. I could easily be wrong, though.

People all around me were whispering 'oh god' and 'eww' and such, but I wasn't sure what to think.

My personal opinion is that the dad character developed sexual inclinations towards Juno by that point in the movie. However, I would have reacted with "oh god" and "eww" even if I had thought he had no romantic interest in her. Something about a man who refuses to grow up*, and is so incredibly blind to his own motivations and how he comes across to other people, is just squicky. It's like that song, Glory Days. People who get the majority of their sense of self worth from who they were 15+ years ago come off as pathetic, and the more they parade it around to prove their coolness, the less attractive it gets.

* Refusing to grow up by maintaining your sense of wonder and following your dreams is ok with me. Refusing to grow up by pretending that your adult responsibilities and commitments don't exist is annoying. There are more nuances that I don't have words for, but please don't think I'm dismissing all potential meanings of "refusing to grow up" as bad.
posted by vytae at 9:13 PM on January 9, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

I figured Mark's whispering "I'm leaving Vanessa. I'm getting an apartment downtown" (that quote might not be 100% word for word accurate) to Juno was intended as a subtle hint from Mark to Juno that this would make them free to be together. Hence the "ewww" reaction.
posted by The Gooch at 9:46 PM on January 9, 2008

Huh. I was not left with the impression that he had fantasies about her at all. I think that they were both feeling a little excitement of finding someone they could relate to (at least superficially) and that they both fought the tingle of sexual tension. I think she served as a portal back the things he had forgotten he loved, that he had buried due to being in an unfulfilling relationship, and that she acted as a catalyst to the realization that he would never be happy with Vanessa. I never got any impression he wanted to leave his wife for Juno. I don't think he was immature or deluded and I think in the end he did the best thing for everyone.

Astro Zombie: According to Diablo Cody, she specifically wrote that it was Dr Pepper lip gloss in the script, and a PA had to drive from the set in Canada to the United States to buy some for that scene. So I bet she'd be glad to hear you recognized the brand.

That's a really... weird claim. It's not like you can't get it here. I've had it myself.
posted by loiseau at 9:58 PM on January 9, 2008

The one thing about Mark that popped out at me from the dialogue was the one time Juno came over to visit and asked where Vanessa was.

Mark's reply: "She's not here. It's safe."
posted by aclevername at 10:08 PM on January 9, 2008

Slight derail...but given that Juno was presented as smart and capable, why the hell wasn't she carrying her own condoms? The seduction of Bleeker was planned-- and there would have still been a movie if the rubber had broken.
posted by brujita at 10:46 PM on January 9, 2008

Oh, god he totally was attracted to her. Whether or not he was leaving his wife FOR Juno, I think was left ambiguous, because it seemed that the character himself wasn't even ready to admit to that. But I think his attraction to her goes beyond the fact that she is young and attracted to him. It's not that she's cute and funny and some sort of ego boost, she's more of a screaming wake-up call that he's married to the wrong person.
posted by 23skidoo at 11:21 PM on January 9, 2008

Not to get all Freudian, but I thought there was something in Juno that liked Mark because she could imagine him being a hip dad to the baby and by extension to herself. Juno herself obviously loves her dad, but there were points in the film where you could see she just wants him to get her in her teenage-hipness. Part of her character arc was learning that the totally geeky things her dad says to her about loving her always are true, even if he doesn't like guitars or horror films or whatever. She's looking for a place to fit in, and Mark offers that, superficially-- but under the surface he doesn't, because his emotional growth is stunted. (I'd argue partially by his capitulation to a subservient role in his relationship, but ymmv.) There's an element of attraction there on both sides, but for Juno I'd suspect its not conscious at all. For him, she represents a chance to try again, more than a real fantasy that they're going to have a relationship. I didn't think he was saying "I'm getting an apartment, it can be our love nest." I think he was saying, "I'm getting an apartment, you can come over and validate my continued hipness and youthfulness." (Although part of him probably wouldn't turn down the chance for a little nookie.)
posted by miss tea at 4:57 AM on January 10, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

My vote is for intentionally ambiguous. It's there, but not explicit. If he had straight-up hit on her, that would have pushed his character into undeniably reprehensible territory. But it's not a lifetime movie--who wants it to be so morally black and white? So at the end of the movie, we see that the guy who seemed cool at first is actually not so cool, pretty immature, and maybe almost made a huge mistake by giving into a temptation that is natural to have but is his duty as the adult in the situation not to act on. He's human, it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's not a good thing either. I must say I love how it ended. (And I loved Allison Janney). (And I love Dr. Pepper lip gloss).

I've seen other folks on the internet seemed confused about this, and I'm surprised. Do people really think it's OK for 30-something married men to slow dance with underage girls in their basements?

(And can you imagine coming home from work and finding your husband alone with a teenage girl who's running away from him and crying? Man, that scene was awesomely awkward).
posted by lampoil at 5:14 AM on January 10, 2008

Interesting that no one else has really said this, but...I thought it was completely obvious that there was a transference thing going on because of the nature of their relationship. She was, in a very real sense, having his baby. She was having trouble finding intimacy with the biological father of her child, so she was looking for it with the adoptive father of her child.

Similarly, Patrick felt he had a sort of dispensation to flirt with Juno because she was pregnant with 'his' child. This implied an awkward but unavoidable 'intimacy.' As soon as they realized that they had something in common, it made them both feel a lot more comfortable with the situation to be able to explore a friendship. But the natural development of that friendship is of course going to turn to actual intimacy eventually.

What was disappointing about Patrick's character wasn't that he was attracted to Juno. (Come on...of course he was attracted to her.) It was that he took their intimacy to be more of a way to get his youth back, then to connect with the biological mother of his child. And it's also key that this recapturing of his youth is more important to him than his attraction to Juno specifically. After all, he still leaves Vanessa, even when he knows that he his friendship with Juno is over.

miss tea also has some good points about another kind of transference.

People are complicated, especially when it comes to things like their relationship with their own children, with their parents, and with those they're attracted to. One of the reasons this is a good movie is that it takes that into consideration. It's a mistake to think that this question has one simple, obvious answer. Juno and Patrick's relationship isn't supposed to be easy to explain; it's supposed to be easy to believe.
posted by bingo at 6:13 AM on January 10, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

vytae said: Something about a man who refuses to grow up*, and is so incredibly blind to his own motivations and how he comes across to other people, is just squicky. It's like that song, Glory Days. People who get the majority of their sense of self worth from who they were 15+ years ago come off as pathetic, and the more they parade it around to prove their coolness, the less attractive it gets.

Despite the caveats (and realizing it's slightly off topic), this pisses me off no end. I think it's SO easy to see the guy as shirking his responsibilities, when in fact, it seemed to me that though he wasn't doing exactly what he'd wanted to do, he had buckled down, used his skills as a musician, and had done quite well (recall the scene where he talks about how x song paid for his kitchen remodel). That he's wistful for his rock band days doesn't make him pathetic. That he's ambiguous about having a child does not mean he's "refusing to grow up". Being a parent does not MAKE one grown up. Choosing not to be one does not MAKE one creepy or irresponsible.

I'd posit that the majority of people are NOT doing what they dreamed they'd be doing as adults. Sucking it up and deadening yourself to the drudgery of that life does not make you a responsible adult. The Vanessa character, so SURE she needed to be a mother, busied herself with things, and perfection. In the end, she's a very sympathetic character, but that uptight driven-ness is as distasteful, if not moreso, than her husband's desire not to be a career jingle writer, or not to be a parent.

This said, I absolutely think that Juno's presence and their connection was the catalyst to his leaving (and that there was some romantic feelings brewing there) something that he likely should have done much sooner.
posted by FlyByDay at 7:04 AM on January 10, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

FlyByDay, I think Mark's issue was that he shirked his emotional responsibilities, not his economic responsibilities. Instead of having an adult relationship with Vanessa, he chose to be the emotional child in the relationship, allowing himself (his true self, perhaps) to be relegated to the corners of the house and hidden away. Instead of honesty with his wife about his ambivalence about fatherhood, he chose to throw himself into an emotional sulk, and drowned that ambivalence in his wistfulness for his lost youth. It's not the wistfulness per se that's emotionally immature; it's the fact that he doesn't stand up as an adult and have the hard conversations. Kind of like Juno is doing with the father of her baby-- but she has the excuse that she's 16.
posted by miss tea at 8:21 AM on January 10, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

miss tea, I get that, but if he's doing that, she's just as complicit. She's HELL BENT on having that child, when she's clearly with a guy who's not ready and available for that (which isn't wrong or right - it just IS). Someone not blinded by baby lust would say "This marriage isn't working. Let's see if we can fix that before we bring a child into the mix". And I'm FASCINATED and dismayed that noone sees her character as equally "irresponsible". I too thought their relationship was the most interesting in the movie, because of these very issues. As a woman, I think we too often give women a pass on these kinds of things because having babies is what women are "supposed to do", so whatever it takes to have it is ok.
posted by FlyByDay at 9:35 AM on January 10, 2008

FlyByDay, I think the reason it's easier to give her a pass, is that with no extra information, it's made quite clear that she wanted to have a baby. Her husband knew throughout the entire film, and for a seemingly long period of time that she wanted to have a baby. She was upfront with it the whole time.

Mark decides that once having a baby is actually an option that he is no longer interested in having a baby, or being married for that matter.

If you'll excuse a sports metaphor, he moved the goal posts pretty late in the game.

As far as her trying to make the marriage work, the way I remember it, he didn't really offer her that option.
posted by drezdn at 9:51 AM on January 10, 2008

I think the reason it's easier to give her a pass, is that with no extra information, it's made quite clear that she wanted to have a baby. Her husband knew throughout the entire film, and for a seemingly long period of time that she wanted to have a baby. She was upfront with it the whole time.

But it's made very clear throughout the film that she doesn't care about his opinion. There's a difference between being upfront about having a baby and getting positive feedback, and being upfront about having a baby and then willfully ignoring the fact that your husband doesn't really want that just because he goes along with everything you say.

Neither one of them tried to fix their marriage because neither one of them wanted to fix it. Mark wanted something from Vanessa that she was never going to give: a partner who likes who he is and supports him in what he wants to do. Vanessa wanted something that Mark no longer was: a pushover who would do whatever she wanted.
posted by 23skidoo at 10:13 AM on January 10, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I have to agree with drezdn. FlyByDay, I see your general point and I realize some of the story was left intentionally ambiguous, but I think you're adding facts to the plot that were never intended. Mark doesn't have the "Are you *SURE* having a baby is such a great idea?" talk with Vanessa until after the incident referred to in the OP (in other words, a hell of a lot later than he should have). There is no indication anytime in the movie that she pressured him into the decision to have the baby or that he ever expressed doubt to her over whether or not it was a wise idea beforehand. To assume this is to imagine plot points that are not in the script.
posted by The Gooch at 10:17 AM on January 10, 2008

Actually, it's pretty clear she's pressured him into it (without my reading into it) - she makes that whole speech about how she's "born to be a mommy", and every look and gesture of his says "this isn't what I want". She approaches the adoption just as she's approached her job - as something to acquire and make into a successful venture. It's also clear that he should have had the balls to tell her he didn't want to be part of it much sooner than he did. They both make mistakes, and you can see that they'll "pay" for them in their futures (that we don't see), but may also end up better for it, which is why it's so bittersweet.
posted by FlyByDay at 10:32 AM on January 10, 2008

FlyByDay, I agree that Vanessa certainly has her own set of issues. I was speaking to Mark's because it was his intentions, and relationship with Juno, the OP was questioning. I had a really hard time with Vanessa's character, especially with the fact that she treats their shared home as hers.

Still, I do firmly believe that part of emotional maturity is learning to use your words, so to speak-- even if Mark's 'every word and gesture' says he's not ready for a kid, it's his responsibility as an adult to say that, clearly, to his wife. I don't think it's her responsibility to speak for him. Even in the matter of the way the house was set up-- obviously Mark wanted to have more than a single room for 'his' stuff, and the life he cares about-- but it's just as obvious he never said that to her.
posted by miss tea at 10:44 AM on January 10, 2008

I don't think the movie gives either of them a pass. They're both imperfect people in an imperfect situation. It's just that we see Vanessa's flaws from the beginning, while Patrick's come out more gradually.

Patrick's not immature and irresponsible because of any specific thing such as wanting to be a musician or not wanting to be a parent. He's immature and irresponsible because he made a commitment to Vanessa, Juno, and the baby (and the lawyer, and Juno's parents, and and and...) and then went back on those commitments. Making commitments and then backing out is irresponsible, period. Better to back out now than wait for some later date? Sure. But not as good as thinking things through and being honest with yourself and everyone else before making really, really important commitments. Also, the relationship he had with Juno, an underaged girl, was inappropriate, and that shows immaturity and irresponsbility. That Juno was pregnant and the couple planned to adopt the baby complicates things, sure--again, nothing here is morally black and white. That's what makes it a good story.

Vanessa made mistakes, too, for sure. Both characters did. Both characters suffered consequences for those mistakes. What's the problem?
posted by lampoil at 11:02 AM on January 10, 2008

Who's Patrick</a
posted by The Gooch at 11:17 AM on January 10, 2008

Even in the matter of the way the house was set up-- obviously Mark wanted to have more than a single room for 'his' stuff, and the life he cares about-- but it's just as obvious he never said that to her.

I think the scene where he's given two paint choices, both essentially the same, supports the notion that she doesn't listen to what he wants, even when he comes out and tells her. He actually comes out and says that yellow is a bad color choice and that they should wait to paint the room, and she totally ignores him.
posted by 23skidoo at 11:28 AM on January 10, 2008

I don't think he's attracted to her per-say. I think he just likes the idea that she sees him as hip and young -- or so he thought anyway. When he tells juno he's leaving his wife, I think it's because he sees her as his peer and friend, not as his new girl friend.
posted by chunking express at 11:37 AM on January 10, 2008

when mark asks "what am i to you?", i heard it is "oh god, you don't have a crush on me, do you?" not "please tell me you have a crush on me." initially i was squicked out and uncomfortable, but by the end i decided that juno served as more of a wake-up call than a love interest for mark.
posted by kidsleepy at 11:40 AM on January 10, 2008

when mark asks "what am i to you?", i heard it is "oh god, you don't have a crush on me, do you?" not "please tell me you have a crush on me."

Looking at the script, it's pretty clear that's not what's going on. Mark says "what am I to you?" after Juno tells him that she took for granted that he'd want to be a father because he's "old." "What am I to you" is the moment when Mark realizes that Juno does not see him as a peer. He thinks of her as a friend, but she thinks of him as an adult and a potential dad.
posted by craichead at 1:07 PM on January 10, 2008

Mark wanted something from Vanessa that she was never going to give: a partner who likes who he is and supports him in what he wants to do. Vanessa wanted something that Mark no longer was: a pushover who would do whatever she wanted.

I don't think that Vanessa wanted a pushover. I think she wanted a partner who was as interested in raising a child as she was. Mark clearly wasn't this person, but it's kind of interesting that Vanessa's wish for a person with whom to raise a family is regarded as a search for a yes-man. If anything, I think that maybe other posters' interpretation that Mark had somehow messed up the first attempt at adoption was correct, and that, in the beginning of the movie when they are first introduced, both Mark and Vanessa felt that Mark kind of owed it to Vanessa not to mess things up this time.
posted by LiliaNic at 1:58 PM on January 10, 2008

Sorry, one last thing. I think the real point of that entire exchange is that it's the moment when Mark realizes that Juno is a child, and that being an adolescent isn't the same thing as being a really cool, free-spirited adult. He wants to be a free-spirited adult, and he's projected that longing onto Juno. He associates freedom with his lost youth. But Juno isn't a super-cool adult. She's a kid. She's ill-equipped. He's been an asshole to her not because he's trying to get in her pants, but because he has failed to realize how vulnerable Juno is emotionally and how naive her understanding of the whole situation is.
posted by craichead at 2:05 PM on January 10, 2008

To answer the OP's question, I think the scene in the basement is definitely supposed to be filled with uncomfortable sexual tension. I saw the movie last night and I'm pretty sure in that scene that Juno puts her hands on Mark's waist first, asking if that's how his prom date danced with him, and then he moves her hands up to around his neck and says something like "No, like this." I think that the attraction was there in both Juno and Mark. Juno is pretty ambivalent: she is attracted to Mark, I think, but also wants him to stay with Vanessa and be a good dad to the child. She's genuinely upset when she finds out he's going to leave Vanessa.

I think Mark was realizing more and more that he and Vanessa were not a good match for each other, and his attraction to Juno made him acknowledge that he wanted to leave her. I think Vanessa knew that Mark didn't really want to be a dad but that she was really hoping he would change. And the lack of acrimony between them in the scene when Mark says he's called their lawyer and she'll act for both of them shows that the split is something both of them knew, deep down, was inevitable.

I guess the fact that I'm closest in age to Mark and Vanessa made me most interested in their story arc. I thought they were both portrayed sympathetically in the end, although you could see their flaws from the beginning. Each character could very easily have been portrayed as highly unsympathetic (Mark as an irresponsible, immature, creepy Humbert Humbert philanderer; Vanessa as a controlling shrew who is hell-bent on having a baby at all costs), but the roles were written and played much more subtly. I appreciated that.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 3:29 PM on January 12, 2008