By the second week, things were still looking pretty rough, but a few positive voices were finally starting to pop up.
IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes are the two biggest, most trusted movie-review sites in the U.S. (think China's Mtime).
If you paid close attention, you'd notice that even though Juno had bombed at the box office out of the gate, its IMDB score was somehow sitting at a ridiculous 8.8!
Everybody knows that once more people vote, the score usually drops, but 8.8 this early? That's straight-up insane.
Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the Tomatometer (the "freshness" percentage) wasn't super high yet, mostly because not that many critics had weighed in. But everybody also knows the real gauge for audience love is the Popcornmeter. The higher that bucket, the more regular moviegoers actually liked it.
Juno was rocking an 89% Popcornmeter.
And if you scrolled down, it was just wall-to-wall glowing reviews:
"Thank you, Juno. Right when I was sick of life and bored with my own life, this movie showed up. It didn't give me some huge epiphany or change everything, but it reminded me there are tons of other 'losers' like me out here still grinding every day. What excuse do I have not to keep going?"
"When being great becomes a habit, you realize failure can actually be kind of beautiful."
"This movie is literally a success story about failures."
"I haven't cried at a movie in years. First time in forever."
"When Juno switches from 'her' to 'us'… man, I almost lost it."
You barely saw any negative comments. (Of course, it's also possible the haters thought the movie was too small to bother trashing.)
Still, something felt off, in a good way. This whole thing was getting weird.
People who really understand how Hollywood works know this is exactly how legendary low-budget sleepers are born.
Those sky-high scores on the review sites started turning heads. Critics and media folks who'd originally dismissed it as just another "one-week wonder" that would disappear fast started paying attention.
Film Comment magazine, pretty much the most respected, highbrow film-critic publication in America, was the first big outlet to stick up for Juno. They didn't go full cheerleader mode, but they said some fair, supportive things.
They basically called it "the little indie that restores dignity to low-budget filmmaking."
"This weekend the multiplexes are packed with blockbusters; you might've missed Juno entirely."
"It's remarkably polished. The story, the editing, everything. You can tell the director has her own distinct style and philosophy. The techniques feel fresh, never gimmicky. It's warm, cozy, and deeply human. That's the dignity low-budget movies should have."
It was only a few paragraphs, but Film Comment is the best-selling serious film mag in the country. A ton of cinephiles treat it like gospel, and the editors are notoriously picky. Getting any praise from them is huge.
Right after that, Variety (the oldest, most legendary industry trade magazine) followed suit and gave Juno a full-page feature.
Variety went way harder than the pretentious Film Comment folks:
"Underdog Loser Movie of the Year: Juno Defies the Mainstream and Wins."
"A script that's perfect in every way: classic inciting incident, flawless setup/payoff, reversals stacked on reversals, mini-climaxes building relentlessly into one massive emotional peak. Every thread gets tied up, every character reaches a new level of understanding. You could watch this a hundred times."
"In life, do we succeed because we're exceptional… or do we become unique because we're gloriously average?"
After those two heavyweights kicked the door open, more and more viewers and media outlets started noticing this tiny little movie fighting for its life in the cracks.
IMDB is mostly regular people voting. Rotten Tomatoes leans toward critics and press. Then there's Metacritic, which pulls from a much smaller, old-school pool of established print critics, the kind people always accuse of being out-of-touch dinosaurs.
Luckily, Juno's whole vibe actually lines up perfectly with what those traditionalists love.
Suddenly a bunch of big-name Metacritic critics were writing full columns about it. Overnight the movie felt a lot more "legit."
Nobody could've predicted that in just one weekend plus a couple weekdays, Juno's fate would start turning around.
Word-of-mouth was building like a snowball turning into an avalanche. Between the glowing online scores, the print love, and critics singing its praises, the box office finally showed faint signs of life.
Maybe audiences were just burned out on popcorn blockbusters, and all the snobby critics needed somewhere to flex their superiority complex, because they all swarmed to Juno at once.
When Joey got the email from Kingfisher Pictures saying ticket sales were ticking up, she was a nervous wreck. She drove to the nearest theater to see it for herself.
Screenings were still scarce; during prime time there wasn't a single Juno showtime. She ended up buying a ticket for the 9:30 p.m. slot on a weeknight.
The lobby was dead. Maybe a couple dozen people total milling around the coffee stand waiting for their movies, and obviously not all of them were there for Juno.
Joey eavesdropped, desperate to hear anything.
"You're really seeing Juno? You sure? Who's even in it? I bet it sucks."
"Eh, let's try it. Online reviews are crazy good. Word-of-mouth is fire."
Another pair:
"I only heard about it because Film Comment recommended it, but get this, the director isn't even on IMDB and all the actors are Swedish."
Finally the lights dimmed.
Joey walked in with everybody else. The theater wasn't even half full.
Watching her own movie on the big screen, she went full critic mode, nitpicking every frame.
But as those familiar scenes, lines, and faces started rolling, she felt the tears coming. Her Juno was really here. On an actual theater screen.
It's an arthouse pace, slow and deliberate, but everybody in that theater already knew what they were in for, so nobody walked out.
American audiences are pretty respectful; no talking, no phones glowing. Dead silent.
Then the funny parts hit, and little bursts of laughter rippled through the sparse crowd.
"Hahaha, oh my god, the girl playing Juno is hilarious."
"I shouldn't say this, but this movie has me crying one minute and laughing the next."
"The lead opens her mouth and it's just instant swagger. I already love her."
Regular moviegoers don't talk like critics. They just say "that made me cry," "that was hilarious," "I loved it." Simple, straight from the gut.
As the plot kept twisting, new crisis right after the last one got resolved, each sequence delivering another emotional punch, the audience got sucked all the way in.
They felt the mother-daughter tension, the buried love underneath, and when everything finally unraveled and healed, more than a few people were wiping their eyes.
In their heads they were probably thinking, "Yeah, it got me. No shame. I'm moved."
When the credits rolled and that final song played, Juno, her mom, and grandma walking through the Christmas Eve snow after picking up great-grandma from the police station, three generations of proud "failures" who finally understood family is what matters, success or failure be damned.
In the end all three women willingly, wholeheartedly accept they're losers.
And that's okay. Success, failure, both are just chapters in the story that makes you you. Sometimes it sounds like a cop-out, but living for other people's approval really does make you miserable. That part not a cop-out at all.
The lights came up slow, credits still rolling, that gorgeous song still playing. Nobody moved. They just sat there soaking it in.
This was a good movie.
A great one, even.
That what they were all thinking.
Joey stayed glued to her seat, slid her sunglasses back on, and tried to hide the tears.
Behind her, the entire theater, every single person in that half-empty room, stood up.
A couple people started clapping first.
Then more.
Then the whole place was on its feet.
In a theater that barely had fifty people to start with, every single one of them gave Juno a standing ovation.
The clapping wouldn't stop. Like applause alone wasn't enough to say thank you.
Because at the end of the day, the only movies worth anything are the ones that make you feel something real.
And they were happy to give three minutes of their lives to show respect to the people who made it.
The only person still sitting was Joey.
Sunglasses on, tears streaming down underneath.
Thank you, Juno, for everything so far. She'd seen a flicker of hope, then a little more, and now a flood of it.
What she didn't know yet, as the buzz and love kept exploding online and in print, was that Juno was about to take off for real.
Chapter 21
By the second week, things were still looking pretty rough, but a few positive voices were finally starting to pop up.
IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes are the two biggest, most trusted movie-review sites in the U.S. (think China's Mtime).
If you paid close attention, you'd notice that even though Juno had bombed at the box office out of the gate, its IMDB score was somehow sitting at a ridiculous 8.8!
Everybody knows that once more people vote, the score usually drops, but 8.8 this early? That's straight-up insane.
Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the Tomatometer (the "freshness" percentage) wasn't super high yet, mostly because not that many critics had weighed in. But everybody also knows the real gauge for audience love is the Popcornmeter. The higher that bucket, the more regular moviegoers actually liked it.
Juno was rocking an 89% Popcornmeter.
And if you scrolled down, it was just wall-to-wall glowing reviews:
"Thank you, Juno. Right when I was sick of life and bored with my own life, this movie showed up. It didn't give me some huge epiphany or change everything, but it reminded me there are tons of other 'losers' like me out here still grinding every day. What excuse do I have not to keep going?"
"When being great becomes a habit, you realize failure can actually be kind of beautiful."
"This movie is literally a success story about failures."
"I haven't cried at a movie in years. First time in forever."
"When Juno switches from 'her' to 'us'… man, I almost lost it."
You barely saw any negative comments. (Of course, it's also possible the haters thought the movie was too small to bother trashing.)
Still, something felt off, in a good way. This whole thing was getting weird.
People who really understand how Hollywood works know this is exactly how legendary low-budget sleepers are born.
Those sky-high scores on the review sites started turning heads. Critics and media folks who'd originally dismissed it as just another "one-week wonder" that would disappear fast started paying attention.
Film Comment magazine, pretty much the most respected, highbrow film-critic publication in America, was the first big outlet to stick up for Juno. They didn't go full cheerleader mode, but they said some fair, supportive things.
They basically called it "the little indie that restores dignity to low-budget filmmaking."
"This weekend the multiplexes are packed with blockbusters; you might've missed Juno entirely."
"It's remarkably polished. The story, the editing, everything. You can tell the director has her own distinct style and philosophy. The techniques feel fresh, never gimmicky. It's warm, cozy, and deeply human. That's the dignity low-budget movies should have."
It was only a few paragraphs, but Film Comment is the best-selling serious film mag in the country. A ton of cinephiles treat it like gospel, and the editors are notoriously picky. Getting any praise from them is huge.
Right after that, Variety (the oldest, most legendary industry trade magazine) followed suit and gave Juno a full-page feature.
Variety went way harder than the pretentious Film Comment folks:
"Underdog Loser Movie of the Year: Juno Defies the Mainstream and Wins."
"A script that's perfect in every way: classic inciting incident, flawless setup/payoff, reversals stacked on reversals, mini-climaxes building relentlessly into one massive emotional peak. Every thread gets tied up, every character reaches a new level of understanding. You could watch this a hundred times."
"In life, do we succeed because we're exceptional… or do we become unique because we're gloriously average?"
After those two heavyweights kicked the door open, more and more viewers and media outlets started noticing this tiny little movie fighting for its life in the cracks.
IMDB is mostly regular people voting. Rotten Tomatoes leans toward critics and press. Then there's Metacritic, which pulls from a much smaller, old-school pool of established print critics, the kind people always accuse of being out-of-touch dinosaurs.
Luckily, Juno's whole vibe actually lines up perfectly with what those traditionalists love.
Suddenly a bunch of big-name Metacritic critics were writing full columns about it. Overnight the movie felt a lot more "legit."
Nobody could've predicted that in just one weekend plus a couple weekdays, Juno's fate would start turning around.
Word-of-mouth was building like a snowball turning into an avalanche. Between the glowing online scores, the print love, and critics singing its praises, the box office finally showed faint signs of life.
Maybe audiences were just burned out on popcorn blockbusters, and all the snobby critics needed somewhere to flex their superiority complex, because they all swarmed to Juno at once.
When Joey got the email from Kingfisher Pictures saying ticket sales were ticking up, she was a nervous wreck. She drove to the nearest theater to see it for herself.
Screenings were still scarce; during prime time there wasn't a single Juno showtime. She ended up buying a ticket for the 9:30 p.m. slot on a weeknight.
The lobby was dead. Maybe a couple dozen people total milling around the coffee stand waiting for their movies, and obviously not all of them were there for Juno.
Joey eavesdropped, desperate to hear anything.
"You're really seeing Juno? You sure? Who's even in it? I bet it sucks."
"Eh, let's try it. Online reviews are crazy good. Word-of-mouth is fire."
Another pair:
"I only heard about it because Film Comment recommended it, but get this, the director isn't even on IMDB and all the actors are Swedish."
Finally the lights dimmed.
Joey walked in with everybody else. The theater wasn't even half full.
Watching her own movie on the big screen, she went full critic mode, nitpicking every frame.
But as those familiar scenes, lines, and faces started rolling, she felt the tears coming. Her Juno was really here. On an actual theater screen.
It's an arthouse pace, slow and deliberate, but everybody in that theater already knew what they were in for, so nobody walked out.
American audiences are pretty respectful; no talking, no phones glowing. Dead silent.
Then the funny parts hit, and little bursts of laughter rippled through the sparse crowd.
"Hahaha, oh my god, the girl playing Juno is hilarious."
"I shouldn't say this, but this movie has me crying one minute and laughing the next."
"The lead opens her mouth and it's just instant swagger. I already love her."
Regular moviegoers don't talk like critics. They just say "that made me cry," "that was hilarious," "I loved it." Simple, straight from the gut.
As the plot kept twisting, new crisis right after the last one got resolved, each sequence delivering another emotional punch, the audience got sucked all the way in.
They felt the mother-daughter tension, the buried love underneath, and when everything finally unraveled and healed, more than a few people were wiping their eyes.
In their heads they were probably thinking, "Yeah, it got me. No shame. I'm moved."
When the credits rolled and that final song played, Juno, her mom, and grandma walking through the Christmas Eve snow after picking up great-grandma from the police station, three generations of proud "failures" who finally understood family is what matters, success or failure be damned.
In the end all three women willingly, wholeheartedly accept they're losers.
And that's okay. Success, failure, both are just chapters in the story that makes you you. Sometimes it sounds like a cop-out, but living for other people's approval really does make you miserable. That part not a cop-out at all.
The lights came up slow, credits still rolling, that gorgeous song still playing. Nobody moved. They just sat there soaking it in.
This was a good movie.
A great one, even.
That what they were all thinking.
Joey stayed glued to her seat, slid her sunglasses back on, and tried to hide the tears.
Behind her, the entire theater, every single person in that half-empty room, stood up.
A couple people started clapping first.
Then more.
Then the whole place was on its feet.
In a theater that barely had fifty people to start with, every single one of them gave Juno a standing ovation.
The clapping wouldn't stop. Like applause alone wasn't enough to say thank you.
Because at the end of the day, the only movies worth anything are the ones that make you feel something real.
And they were happy to give three minutes of their lives to show respect to the people who made it.
The only person still sitting was Joey.
Sunglasses on, tears streaming down underneath.
Thank you, Juno, for everything so far. She'd seen a flicker of hope, then a little more, and now a flood of it.
What she didn't know yet, as the buzz and love kept exploding online and in print, was that Juno was about to take off for real.