In Jason Reitman’s new film Juno, Ellen Page plays the titular character; a too-wise-for-her-years hipster who spouts witty dialogue like it’s going out of style. She’s, like, totally into music and, like, totally embodies everything you loved about that bizarrely cute, totally eccentric indie rock girl you met at that concert that one time. After getting knocked up by the emasculate Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), hilarity (supposedly) ensues as Juno is forced to deal with the distressing situation.

Juno has garnered much attention for its ‘refreshing and witty’ dialogue, penned by ex-stripper-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody. In reality, Juno’s script reads like a normal screenplay processed through some kind of indie-hipster translation machine. Replace every word or phrase in every line with some other ‘cooler’ way of saying the same thing and bingo; you have the secret to Juno’s ‘refreshing’ dialogue. ‘Shut up’ becomes, ‘Silencio, old man!’ A pregnancy test is a ‘pee stick,’ a penis is a ‘pork sword,’ and a character exclaims, ‘honest to blog?!’ when she learns of Juno’s pregnancy. It’s just like that time your mom tried to pick up trendy catchphrases from watching MTV and, subsequently, embarrassed the hell out of you when she threw a ‘who let the dogs out?’ into the conversation the next time your friends came over.

Actual moments of wit are few and far between, and it’s difficult to stomach everything else while waiting for them. Juno’s dialogue is forced, trite, and worst of all, flat-out annoying. The hyper-stylized colloquy might have worked if used more sparingly, but it quickly becomes an overwhelming and pervasive force that is impossible to ignore. Juno’s occasional voice overs, which are equally intolerable, consist of Page making piercingly vapid observations and oh-so-cool analogies in one the most botched attempts I’ve seen at channeling the (pitch-perfect and incomparably better) smarminess of Fight Club’s narration. Juno’s got all the sass and none of the class. It’s all style and no substance. Ya’ dig what I mean, home skillet? It’s just one doodle that can’t be un-did. (Sorry, I slipped into Juno-speak there for a moment).

The awkward, gimmicky dialogue might be easier to forgive if the characters were, you know, likeable. But alas, we have a catch-22; it’s tough to like Juno when she runs around town shooting snarky comments at everyone and, therefore, also difficult (if not impossible) to sympathize with her plight. This is exacerbated by the fact that even she doesn’t seem to sympathize with her own plight. Juno cracks jokes while on the phone with the abortion clinic, she cracks jokes as she remorselessly informs her parents about her pregnancy, and she cracks jokes while lamenting such profound musings as ‘what does being sexually active even mean? Is it like, something I can turn off?’ Yes, questions like these are really Juno’s idea of raising relevant teen issues.

The supporting cast fares better than Page, largely due to the fact that they aren’t so deeply rooted in the smarmy, hipster dialogue that pervades Juno’s every exchange. There is a clear positive correlation between how normal and natural the characters sound and how likable they are in relation to Juno. The most interesting character, not surprisingly, is one of the most ‘normal;’ Jennifer Garner as the mother adopting Juno’s unborn baby. From her first appearance, it’s subtly apparent something is a little off about her, which develops into the film’s most interesting subplot, outside of a strange but magnetic plot thread involving subversive sexual tension between Bateman and Page’s characters.

Toward the conclusion of the film, director Reitman tries to make some sense of the preceding hour and deliver a message about finding solitude among madness or something to that effect, but by that point, it’s a lost cause. Although Page’s character finally begins to appear a bit more vulnerable and human, all the close-up shots in the world of Juno appearing enervated, contemplative, and sobbing are just too little, too late.

Many have praised the film for providing a portrait of pregnancy from a woman’s perspective, but the praise is hardly warranted. If Juno were a less abrasive and more relatable character, this may have indeed been possible. But occasional mutterings about constipation and morning sickness and some irritable comments from Juno regarding the stares she gets from peers don’t exactly add up to an intensely intimate or eye-opening view of pregnancy.

When considering Juno as a sum of its parts, I am reminded of another similar film, the Zach Braff vehicle Garden State, which until Juno came along, held the title of Most Insufferable and Self-Indulgent Indie Film of the Decade in my book. The similarities are many: unlikeable protagonists, pseudo-intellectual observations about life desperately masquerading as deep existential reflections, hit-and-miss ‘quirky-for-the-sake-of-being-quirky’ humor, and too much music and pop culture referencing for no reason but to make the viewers who get the references feel like geniuses. Additionally, Juno has not only the most insufferably pretentious ‘indie’ soundtrack since 2004’s Garden State compilation, but also the new worst dialogue exchange involving two characters listening to music together, name-dropping bands. “I have got to make you some [mix] CDs,” is the new, “The Shins, you know em? You gotta hear this one song; it’ll change your life, I swear.” Somebody stop these people. I can’t take another one of these films.

Grade: D

Juno is rated PG-13 and currently in wide release.