JASON REITMAN MAKES FAMILY FILM

Jason Reitman directs Juno about a teen-ager who deals with pregnancy and includes her family in the process.

Thank You For Smoking director Jason Reitman moves into another realm of sophisticated storytelling with Juno starring Ellen Page and Michael Cera as teen-agers coping with adult problems such as pregnancy.

The cast of Juno was in a family way during filming as Jason, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman who play Juno’s pick for her baby’s parents had all become new parents which is what he connected to most of all.

“It deals with the very real idea of growing up and having children and becoming a parent. For me the film is very much about the moment you decide to grow up. It’s about sixteen year-old girls who are growing up too fast and 30 year-old men who refuse to grow up.”

Jason teams up with writer Diablo Cody who creates a wickedly smart teen-age character who takes matters into her own hands. Her talent is so organic that often times she’d make dialogue up on the fly whenever needed.

“I remember at one point I said to her, ‘Diablo I think we should make reference to the amount of people who were adopting babies from China at this point and she immediately e-mailed me back the line of dialogue, ‘Juno saying you should’ve gone to China. They’re basically handing out babies like free Ipods. They basically put them in those T-shirt guns, shoot ’em out at stadiums.’ How does someone come up with that?”

Jason was so impressed with her unique voice that he will work with Diablo once again for the screenplay to Jennifer’s Body which he will be producing. He’ll also direct the first episode of The United States of Tara, an original script Diablo wrote for Showtime. Juno is already receiving critical acclaim with a nomination from The Independent Spirit Awards for Best Picture.