While most teenage girls are consumed with school pressure, finding a cute outfit, or boy troubles, 16-year-old Juno MacGuff has bigger fish to fry: she’s pregnant.

Director Jason Reitman puts a comic spin on the seemingly taboo subject of teen pregnancy in his new film Juno. Inadvertently “knocked up,” as quirky Juno (Ellen Page) would call it, by her classmate and “best friend” Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera, Superbad), Juno is faced with the difficulty of finding the right solution to her problem, while expressing her thoughts through her own witty narration. After rejecting the option of abortion, Juno sets out on a quest to find the perfect family to adopt her baby.

A film jam-packed with well-known actors, such as Jennifer Garner, J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney, Juno presents its storyline with diverse characters, each one having his or her own idiosyncratic quirks.

Upon meeting potential adoptive parents, pearl-wearing Vanessa, and white-collar worker Mark Loring (Garner and Jason Bateman), Juno’s informal mannerisms demonstrate just how opposite the characters can be.

Although her pregnancy is just as unexpected for her as it is to everyone else, Juno takes a constructive approach to finding a solution. Sardonic to the core, Juno addresses everyone she meets with sarcasm and brutal honesty. This open attitude seems to be one of the major forces of attraction for Paulie, who is constantly nervous and awkward in his attempt to be “cool.”

Adding to Juno‘s unique characters and sense of humor is its soundtrack. With songs by many alternative rock singers, featuring Kimya Dawson, this soundtrack completes Juno‘s entire indie, unconventional tone. Page and Cera even create their own version of one of the featured songs, “Anyone else but you”, by The Moldy Peaches, and sing it as a duet in the movie.

The one rough patch in this film lies in the undeveloped relationships between certain characters. The viewer eventually comes to understand the more-than-friends relationship between Juno and Paulie, however it takes the entire movie for their confusing connection to be settled. Different from most movies, the “boyfriend” character is not even fully introduced until halfway through the plot. The same goes for Juno’s oddly close bond with Mark. In the same way that Juno’s pregnancy is unexpected and surprising, so are the character’s relations to one another within the movie.

Juno‘s heart-warming and sincere messages gives the viewer a refreshing break from other recent movies which demonstrate teenage conformity to popularity or appearance, such things Juno disregards and even satirizes. Through its awkward characters and situations, Juno acts almost as the female equivalent to Superbad (2007). Although there are bits and pieces of confusion, Juno never ceases to keep the viewer captivated with its unlikely plot and characters with whom the viewer can sympathize.