The more I think about it, the more Juno feels like the kind of movie Ghost World, The Royal Tenenbaums, or Little Miss Sunshine should have been: an indie comedy that manages not to drown in twee, affected cleverness. At the very least, Juno strikes a better balance than those others between writerly quirk and honest emotion - just when you feel like the title character (played by Ellen Page) is too precious a wiseacre to handle, along comes a revealing, hearfelt moment to stave off any impending eye-rolling. Credit must also go to Page, who somehow makes Juno's every sarcastic one-liner utterly believable - you buy what she's selling, where a more self-consciously Hollywood actress would have inflected every line with a knowing, ironic air.

Most importantly, though, Juno MacGuff is a 16-year old girl, and she's written like one. Diablo Cody (who deservedly won the screeplay Oscar) doesn't turn the character into one of those impossibly mature know-it-alls that so thoroughly permeate the teen movie genre. Juno puts on a cool, no-nonsense exterior, but when emotions start roiling and the drama of her life comes into sharper focus, she clings to childlike hope; asking her father to convince her that everlasting love does exist, that perhaps fairy-tale romances have a grain of truth, she's a kid again. Juno is the most fully-realized, authentic vision of a teenager that's been seen on a movie screen in a long time, and for that if nothing else, Juno deserves props. All the rest - the laugh-a-minute dialogue, the hip/sweet soundtrack, the pitch-perfect suppporting performances from Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, and Alison Janney as Juno's infuriating yet lovable stepmom - is just gravy.