This isn't really related to this review but I feel the need to indulge myself by expressing just how much I hate going to the cinema in Oxford. We have a couple of independent cinemas which can therefore be forgiven for their crap seating and sticky floors. But the Odeon: what's your excuse, you commercial bastard? I suppose I could take the janitor's cupboard sized screens, the actively painful seating, the perpetual carpet of stale popcorn and the atmosphere redolent with teenage musk if they didn't make me pay through the fucking nose for the privilege. But, just to situate this in some kind of appropriate context beyond my own miserly bile, you'll appreciate what I mean when I say that Juno made it worth it.

As everybody knows by now, Juno is the quirky teen-pregnancy flick that somehow became a smash hit. And you can see why: it's smart, funny and leaves you with the warm fuzzies while simultaneously avoiding being the least bit saccharine. It's supremely watchable and charming stuff. The script occasionally seems a little self-conscious and, perhaps, even a bit too clever for its own good but this easily compensated for by the strength of the cast and, somewhere between the quips and put-downs, Juno becomes genuinely affirming, heart-warming and poignantly real.

God, I can't believe I wrote that. What has this film done to me?!

Just to shade in the plot for those who have been living under a rock for the last year and a half, Juno - a sassy teenager whose love for such counter-cultural icons as The Stooges and Dario Argento could only be even remotely cool to an adult audience - becomes pregnant after popping the cherry of her skinny, geeky friend, Paulie Bleeker (a wonderful performance from Michael Cera). One failed visit to an Abortion Clinic later, she's explaining to her father and stepmother (or, presumably, stepmom as they call it over there) that she's decided to have the baby and give it up for adoption, having found the perfect family in the Penny Saver.

I think it probably says something about my grumpy grownupness that I actually found the subplot about the adoptive family more interesting than Juno's wisecrack-filled but otherwise rather conventional arc of maturation, despite the fact it's handled with delicacy and panache. The film is Juno's film - most of the scenes we witness through her eyes - and so our first impression of the adoptive family, Vanessa and Mark, mirror her own: they seem a typical suburban yuppie couple bound by their own domesticity. Vanesss is uptight, materialistic and basically desperate while Mark is more relaxed and friendly; on subsequent visits Juno and Mark bond over alternative-rock music, comic books and horror movies, although it becomes increasingly apparent to the viewer that Mark - clinging to his once youthful cool - seems reluctant for the responsibilities of fatherhood.

And by the time the film, and the family, has reached its crisis point both Juno and the audience are able to view them both more clearly: despite his cool, Mark is little more than an overgrown teenager himself, selfishly clutching at impossible dreams of rockstardom whereas Vanessa is a warm and loving woman whose life thus far has been dominated by the disappointment of being unable to conceive the child she so desperately wants. Both are in danger of having to sacrifice their dreams but Vanessa, at least, is as capable of recognising what is, and what isn't, worth fighting for in life. Through Mark and Vanessa, Juno learns that she doesn't know as much as thinks she does and comes to accept, both for herself and her child, that the truth of functional family life is not necessarily rooted in the generally accepted framework of a married couple and their children.

This is not to say, however, that the rest of the film is not effective. Ellen Page of Hardy Candy fame gives an excellent performance as Juno although her constant stream of clever teenage snarks grew a little wearing after a while - although, credit to the actress, that it was always clear that her carefully cultivated attitude sprang from the vulnerability, naivete and bewilderment of being a teenager. I must confess that the lines that amused me the most (and the ones which sounded most natural) were the cheapest, for example when she calls up her friend Leah to tell her the news, Leah picks up the phone asking "Juno?" and Juno immediately deadpans "No, it's Morgan Freeman." And I absolutely adored Michael Cera's gawky but charmingly sincere performance as Juno's best friend and occasional boyfriend - their inept and halting progress towards a relationship is very well observed. Also general cheers for Allison Janney and JK Simmons (as Juno's father and step mother respectively - obviously) who are as fabulous as you would expect.

There were only, in fact, a couple of things that bothered me and I was, for the most part, too busy having my heart warmed to care. The issue of abortion, although it was approached with considerably more courage than in, for example, Knocked Up, still remained largely unaddressed. Juno's stepmother does ask at one point if she has considered "the alternative" but the fact she refers to it as "the alternative" as if the very word itself is somehow too shocking to be uttered is unhelpful to say the least. Furthermore, the clinic Juno visits is not exactly confidence-inspiring - it's dank and dingy and its receptionist is an apathetic punk who tries to get Juno to accept a handful of flavoured condoms. I'm not actually offering this up as a criticism of the film - its not its job, after all, to portray abortion in a positive light - but, nevertheless, considering that the right to have an abortion is central to a woman's ownership of her body and is demonised enough as it is, it should at least be presented neutrally. Secondly, in a film quite concerned with ideas of family, it was slightly odd that they didn't seem to have a single successful "standard" family n there. Juno's father is divorced but in a happy, stable relationship with Allison Janney (and who wouldn't be), Bleeker seems to possess one over-protective mother only and Vanessa and Mark, of course, soon reveal the truth behind their perfect, middle class facade. I liked the film's generous presentation of functional, non-traditional families but, equally, I found it a little peculiar that it seemed to have discarded even the possibility that standard paradigm can also work.

But these are minor quibbles and Juno is certainly well deserving of its accolades.