I'll break the ice. When I went through the script this time, I tried to clear my mind that I had read the script before and seen the movie a couple of times, go at it fresh. Doing that, I was struck by Juno's distinctive voice: a wise-ass beyond her years teenager. If you go to this interview with Cody, she says point blank about Juno, "She's a lot like me," so that could come off as inauthentic, a character who is really the screenwriter, at least in terms of her dialogue. But I didn't read it that way this time. Here's a young woman, Juno, who was affected by the break-up of her parents marriage. Check out this dialogue from P. 15-16 of the script: My dad used to be in the Army, but now he’s just your average HVAC specialist. He and my mom got divorced when I was five. She lives on a Havasu reservation in Arizona... ... with her new husband and three replacement kids. Oh, and she inexplicably mails me a cactus every Valentine’s Day. And I’m like, “Thanks a heap, Coyote Ugly. This cactus-gram stings even worse than your abandonment.” It's not much, almost a throwaway set of sides, but apart from the exposition of the divorce, the sides convey at least two more things: (1) The break-up happened when Juno was 5, a particularly vulnerable age when a child is deep into learning about trust. (2) Juno still hurts from her mother's "abandonment," the pain still stings. I put those two together and that helps me understand why Juno has to act cooler than cool, hipper than hip. She thinks she has moved into adulthood, at least part of her believes that. As an adult, you can do what you want to do, act the way you want to act, you don't need to trust anybody else. Juno has in effect bypassed her adolescence and jumped straight into adulthood [again what she she believes about herself]. Thinking about her decision to have sex with Paulie, I think it was that 'adult' part of Juno at work: what's more adult than coming onto your boyfriend and having unprotected sex? Okay, not rationally perhaps, but the actual daring nature of the act is saying to the universe, "Screw you, I can do what I want to do." Seen in this light, Juno's journey is about trying to be an adult - with her pregnancy - and yet eventually realizing she's still a kid. On P. 88, after she has had it out with Mark and Vanessa following Mark's decision to get a divorce, she returns home and her father asks how she's doing. Juno says this: Dealing with stuff way beyond my maturity level. Part of her metamorphosis, capped off by rejecting the cool, hip adult Mark for the geeky, unhip teenage Paulie. So in the Denouement when instead of driving a car, she rides her bike to Paulie's house and they sing "Anyone Else But You" together, there is this moment: She and Bleeker exchange glances as they play. They smile ambiguously. Juno leans over and kisses Bleeker on the cheek. Pull out to reveal the surrounding green suburb buzzing with life and summer activity. That little kiss on the cheek is a bookend to the script's second scene: FLASHBACK - Juno approaches a boy hidden by shadow. He’s sitting in an overstuffed chair. She slowly, clumsily lowers herself onto his lap. Now she can be a teenager. Now she learn to trust through her relationship with Paulie. Indeed her experiences have helped to ground her in her family, the here and now, so she can settle into who she is and not try to run away into adulthood early. How does all this tie into Juno's voice? Because her wise ass beyond her year's dialogue fits her psychological state, trying to be an adult, trying to sound like an adult. She uses hip and cool lingo, beliefs, and cultural likes / dislikes to distance herself from being a teenager. It makes sense logically for her character and, thus, I would argue is an authentic expression of who she is.

I liked the script because the Protagonist - 16-year old Juno - had an attitude. Written with sharp dialogue. Whether she and Paulie are / aren't in love, Juno gets right out there with her feelings. Very distinctive voice, very strong character. Great Protagonist.

A few random thoughts: It's a great example of "the same but different". We've all seen movies of the week about teenage girls giving up babies for adoption, but Juno takes this cliched idea and puts an entirely new spin on it, creating a distinctive nd unique story out of familiar elements. As wonderful as Juno herself is, Paulie is perhaps the most radical piece of character writing. The father of the baby is usually pushed out of the story early, often portrayed as an irresponsible dirtbag. Telling the story of the boy not ready to be a father, sympathetically and realistically, alongside Juno's story is another example of the way the script defies cliche. Great dialogue, of course, but also some great writing in scene description. The "mold-o-riffic basement", "the sentimental junk that some girls love to hoard", the whole description of Vanessa in the nursery with the baby near the end. Very fresh and striking, yet completely real. So, structure, character and dialogue, a real winner on all three fronts...

What surprised me most when reading it is the many payoffs the script delivers. Like earlier Vanessa talks about the wall missing something, and then at the end it has Juno's framed Jiffy Lube note. And Bleeker's tic tacs. And when Juno and Bleeker make-up and kiss, it cuts to that one jerk who secretly had a crush on her. The scripts peppered with moments like that. Even Juno's hamburger phone, Bleeker has the same one and he stares at it, thinking of her. The first thing people think of when they hear "Juno" is the dialogue, but it's not like she was winging it. It's a really tightly written, well structured script.

dw, great observations, and you caught a few things I didn't catch. Those tiny little set-ups and payoffs, what I call grace notes, recalling that term's use in musical composition to provide ornamentation and flair to a piece, is often one way to know you are reading a script by a professional writer. First immersing oneself in a story universe to such a degree that those tiny bits of business emerge, second knowing how, when and where to use them in a script. I don't know about others, but to me they can provide such sublime pleasure when handled deftly by a screenwriter. Thanks for that observation!

Scott, You asked for additional interviews. Well, this link isn't that, but it is a fascinating news item about Diablo Cody and what can happen when you write great scripts: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/diablo-cody-make-directorial-debut John A