In 'Juno,' Jennifer Garner Turned Unlikeability into High Art

The Big Picture

Jennifer Garner's performance as Vanessa in Juno is filled with subtle details that bring her character to life and make her relatable.
Mark and Vanessa's relationship is raw and complex, with moments of vulnerability and tension that add depth to the story.
Garner's portrayal of Vanessa showcases her ability to convey emotions through body language, allowing the audience to sympathize with her struggles and desires.

2007 was an incredible time for Elliot Page. The up-and-coming Canadian actor had a string of massive hits that garnered huge critical and awards attention, warming up with the deliciously twisted Hard Candy in 2005 and knocking it out of the park with Juno. It was the big movie of the year that everybody was talking about, first in terms of its greatness, and later in terms of its supposed effect on young viewers. Page received no fewer than thirty-five nominations for the role and took twenty of them. For a while, you simply could not escape the Juno effect, and Elliot Page was rightfully the new young star to be reckoned with. But among all the very well-earned praise for Page’s electric performance, others weren’t quite getting the recognition they deserved for their work on the film — particularly Jennifer Garner.

Juno boasts an absolutely terrific cast that seems quite emblematic of its time.JK Simmons and Allison Janney had yet to reach their respective Oscars glory and were well-known for memorable side-characters; Michael Cera was in the midst of his lovable wimp golden era on the heels of Superbad; Jason Bateman had grown from teen idol to full-fledged actor and was well-versed in comedy; and Jennifer Garner had been up-and-coming for a while before 13 Going on 30 cemented her in the A-list. Up until this point, Garner’s career had been a bit of everything. Starting with bit parts in such pictures as Dude, Where’s My Car?, Pearl Harbor and Catch Me If You Can, things took an interesting turn when she portrayed comic book hero Elektra. 13 Going on 30 showed her letting loose and having fun with a really enjoyable script and cast, proving her to be quite the natural when it came to comedy. So Juno came at the ideal time to really showcase her versatility as an actress.

Juno

PG-13ComedyDocumentaryDramaRomance

Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, an offbeat young woman makes a selfless decision regarding the unborn child.

Release Date December 5, 2007 Director Jason Reitman Cast elliot page , Michael Cera , Jennifer Garner , Jason Bateman , Allison Janney , J.K. Simmons Runtime 92

What Is 'Juno' About?

Juno MacGuff is a 16-year-old who is not like other girls. She is kinda tomboyish, has eclectic taste in everything from clothes and music to furnishings and movies, and for some reason, the whole town seems to think of her as ‘the other’ when all she is really guilty of is being a precocious teenager. She learns she has accidentally got pregnant by her best friend Paulie (Cera) and at first goes to have an abortion, but bottles out and finds the next best solution: a wealthy middle-class couple who will give her baby the life she never could.

This is where Mark (Bateman) and Vanessa (Garner) enter the picture, and their introduction aims to emphasize just how out of Juno’s sphere these people are. The action cuts back and forth between the MacGuffs' beat-up old truck driving through a perfectly preened wealthy neighborhood, and a pair of well-manicured hands adjusting the setting of an all-white middle-class house. As the hands nudge a picture frame to a perfectly straight angle and fan out a collection of fancy magazines, it couldn’t be clearer that these two very different worlds are about to collide.

What Makes Jennifer Garner's 'Juno' Performance Stand Out

From the off, the minute details of Garner’s performance make it clear that Vanessa lives life on the edge in the most boring way possible. As Juno bursts into their lives full of snappy one-liners and frayed plaid shirts, Vanessa reels herself in, determined to appease Juno by any means possible because she represents her own distant dream of parenthood. It is very obvious from her measured responses and physical stiffness that Vanessa doesn’t like Juno, perhaps even feels threatened by her, and behind closed doors almost certainly voices this contempt. These two women would never cross paths in any other scenario, and it is jarring for them both to have to deal with each other.

This first meeting is a brilliant piece of awkwardness from all involved but Juno. Her dad Mac (Simmons) feels out of place in this white palace, doesn’t know what a Pilates machine is, and gives himself away as just another working-class schmo, as Vanessa braces herself with a toothy smile and politely keeps the conversation going. With Juno as our protagonist, it is easy to see Vanessa as unlikeable, and that they both tolerate each other for the same reason: Juno needs a parent, and Vanessa needs a baby. However, Garner allows her character moments of vulnerability through which the audience can begin to sympathize with her.

In a touching moment of hurtful faux-pas, Vanessa (who it has been established has fertility problems) declares pregnancy to be a beautiful thing, only for Juno to retort, “you’re lucky it’s not you.” The look of muted pain on Vanessa’s face as she pouts slightly and looks away is so striking. Juno, with the bluster of a mouthy teen, clearly doesn’t mean anything hurtful by the comment, and doesn’t even seem to notice that she has misspoken. But it is very clear from Garner’s understated reaction that this cuts Vanessa deeply, and that in an alternate universe, she would have a lengthy tirade to throw back at this cocky kid. But because her elusive dream of parenthood is in the hands of this kid, she keeps tight-lipped.

Mark and Vanessa's Relationship Is Raw

At the end of each Mark and Vanessa segment, Director Jason Reitman astutely allows the action to linger on the couple for a few seconds after Juno leaves, providing a visual barometer of their relationship as it deteriorates, and their individual perspectives on the situation. After their first meeting with Juno, Mark embraces an emotional Vanessa with a look of expectant satisfaction, as if to say, “are you happy now?” Later, when Mark and Juno have been hanging out alone - something that really raises his wife’s hackles - Vanessa keeps her distance, clasps her hands and purses her lips in a show of feigned contentment, determined not to do anything that would jeopardize her imminent parenthood. These little wordless moments rely entirely on body language to convey the characters' feelings, almost mirroring the smothered existence of this couple, and visualizing exactly how they operate - by saying as little as possible and trucking onward.

Mark and Vanessa’s relationship is perhaps the most raw and genuine of the movie. It is easy to see Mark as the big kid who still enjoys the thrills of life and chases his dream of being a musician, and Vanessa as the cold, frigid harridan who has apparently forgotten what it feels like to have fun. These categorizations are not wrong, but they are simple, and if there is one thing Juno is not, it’s simple. The basic functions of the plot only require a couple of adoptive parents, so a more basic movie focused on teen pregnancy ending in adoption might choose to portray the couple as one-dimensional cut-outs who catch Juno's baby and take it off into the sunset for a happy, middle-class life. But the movie dares to explore the world of adult issues too, and this is important, because for all Juno’s cockiness and ease, her world is not all sunshine. The scene in which Juno pulls to the side of the road in the beat-up family van to cry is integral: the character is finally unmasked and shown acknowledging her vulnerability, and she has no witty one-liner to throw at the situation.

What writer Diablo Cody gets so very right here is that while aiming to portray teenage girls with authenticity, she doesn’t lose sight of what adults really look like. Mark and Vanessa are perhaps the most interesting characters she creates within this unique script. When Mark finally admits to Juno that he doesn’t want to be a parent, or to put it more delicately, “is not ready” to be a parent, she is flabbergasted. “But you’re old!” she retorts. She has an image of what adults look like, and it is of a dull, stable monotony that probably counts as happiness. They should be past the stage in life where they have dreams and goals outside of family and home, and parenthood should come naturally to them because they are just of that age. Mark is living proof that this is not the case, and it turns her entire concept of life and adulthood on its head. Adulthood does not equal happiness or stability, and that is the only thing she craves.

So it is a genuine pleasure to see a young adult movie really care about making the adults relatable and real as much as the kids. From the first scene in which they appear, Mark and Vanessa’s stances in life are made very clear, both in the script and the way Garner and Bateman deliver. Vanessa’s constantly pained expression, with a desperate look behind the eyes that suggests she may burst into tears at any minute, and very careful footing around Juno and Mac, show her doing all it takes to appease this smart-ass sixteen-year-old. It is all about what goes unsaid. It’s enough for Vanessa to say mutedly, and with an expression of disappointed concern, “you found us in The Penny Saver?” This is all we need to deduce what she is thinking: “what must they think of us, advertising our most personal issues in such a cheap, low-rung magazine?” Garner clearly understands her character as a woman smothered by societal expectation, who has all the finer things in life but still cannot find happiness, or even a moment's peace.

And of course, hurt people hurt people, and the unrelenting restraint she exercises every day masks a lot of bitterness. In the key blow-up scene when Mark finally admits his feelings, it brings out the worst in Vanessa, but even then, Garner finds restraint in the anger. Rather than scream and sob, she grasps the high ground and very calmly demeans Mark’s dreams of musicianship to the point of telling him his shirt is stupid, and that he should grow up. She projects onto him her own ideas of success, and how he doesn't fulfill them. She is condescending and knows exactly what to say to hurt her husband. Garner's mom-like coolness when delivering these below-the-belt punches emphasizes how Vanessa sees her husband as a kid in his own right, and not as her equal or partner. She feels an entitlement to his cooperation, so when it turns out that Mark is a person with feelings and wishes of his own and that they are not perfectly aligned with hers, she sees the most important opportunity of her life slipping away and goes into defense mode.

The key attribute that Garner brings to her role is vulnerability. Between Cody’s astute writing and Garner’s emotionally attuned performance, they take a character from unlikeable to understandable, if not entirely relatable, and elicit the sympathy of the audience. Vanessa may not be Juno's preference of "graphic designer, mid-30s with a cool Asian girlfriend who dresses awesome and rocks out on the bass guitar", but she is a real person dealing with a lot of pain and pressure, and all she really wants is something that many other people achieve with ease, or even by accident. As together as she wants to be, she is weak, and every day is a desperate struggle upstream, and that is something people can relate to. Her character arc, especially in conjunction with Juno's, is so touching because it has been an emotional journey for both of them, and they both come out the other side of it with a better understanding of themselves and the ones they love. As Juno's stepmom predicts, "someone else is going to find a precious blessing from Jesus in this garbage dump of a situation", and what really ties it all together is the journey of that someone, finally finding peace and fulfillment in an otherwise chaotic and unfair world.