Calling the tune

Ellen Page, left, and Olivia Thirlby star in Juno. (Fox Searchlight)

In a now-famous scene from the rock ‘n’ roll romance High Fidelity (2000), Jack Black’s bellicose record-store clerk, Barry, all but bans a customer from Championship Vinyl, the über-hip independent outlet where he works. The man’s crime? Having the gall to request a copy of Stevie Wonder’s I Just Called to Say I Love You, that ooey-gooey AM-radio staple from the ’80s.

“It’s sentimental, tacky crap,” Barry spits with contempt. “Do we look like the kind of store that sells I Just Called To Say I Love You? Go to the mall.” (The zinger comes only after Barry admits that yes, they do have a copy of the single in stock.) What that hapless customer didn’t realize was that by walking into Championship Vinyl, he entered a rarefied subculture, one in which musical tastes reflect as much about a person’s character as partisan politics.

This is also the universe of Juno, the self-consciously quirky pregnant-teen comedy that opened Dec. 14 and has been riding the momentum of steady buzz since it premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Played by Ellen Page, 16-year-old Juno MacGuff is all one-liners and stink-eye glares, a comfortable tomboy with a penchant for Gibson Les Paul Guitars and a habit of trusting a person based on their musical choices.

Juno’s likes: Patti Smith, Mott the Hoople — actually, most late-’70s punk. She thrills to loud, aggressive guitars and thrashing drums and feels sheepish about including All the Young Dudes on a compilation CD (it’s still punk rock, but down-tempo). Juno’s bedroom isn’t plastered with pin-ups of the latest mainstream pop diva or mall-punk boy band; instead, you see limited-edition poster art by indie-rock illustrator and comic book artist Tara McPherson.

Jack Black’s character isn’t the only elitist in High Fidelity — he’s abetted by Rob Gordon (John Cusack), Championship Vinyl’s proprietor and the film’s protagonist. While on a first date, Rob outlines his pragmatic approach: “What really matters is what you like, not what you are like. Books, records, films — these things matter. Call me shallow, but it’s the f---in’ truth.” When Rob’s relationship collapses, he sublimates his grief by compulsively devising Top Five lists of songs, reliving his past as though it were merely a backdrop to his record collection.

In film, there have been many Peter Pan-like dudes who can only connect with their emotions through music — there’s Rob Gordon’s psychic twin, Lloyd Dobler (played by a decade-younger Cusack in Say Anything), Ethan Hawke’s scruffy Troy Dyer in Reality Bites and the grunge-scene Neanderthal Cliff Poncier (Matt Dillon) in Singles. Director Cameron Crowe would have no career at all were it not for the existential crises of such rock ‘n’ roll Hamlets.

But you have to dig pretty deep through the crates to find examples of girls who prize music in the same way. It’s not that we don’t exist. At 14, my shelves buckled under the weight of Spin, Rolling Stone and Mojo magazines; I pillaged used CD stores in search of songs I’d never hear on the radio. I suppose I feel a minor kinship with the misanthropic Enid (Thora Birch) from Ghost World (2001), who had a penchant for Bollywood soundtracks; and Claude (Alison Folland) in the feminist coming-of-age film All Over Me (1997), who lost herself in Patti Smith albums and Riot Grrrl punk. But that’s about it. Morvern Callar, Lynne Ramsay’s 2002 film about grief and transformation, boasts an excellent soundtrack, but the heroine’s musical choices are not her own — they were shaped by the mix tape-cum-suicide note left by her boyfriend.

The songs on Juno’s playlist speak volumes about her personality. Her loyalties are to solid, unequivocal classics. Anything that smacks of pretentiousness is the target of her wrath. It’s significant that the team behind Juno’s soundtrack — including Page herself — opted for retro icons (the Kinks, the Velvet Underground and Buddy Holly) who had their heyday before Juno was even a fetus.

John Cusack stars in the movie High Fidelity. (Getty Images)

Characters like Juno and Rob Gordon wield cultural ephemera as armour against Big Feelings. Upon discovering his ex-girlfriend’s father has died, Rob reacts by compiling the Top Five Songs About Death: A Laura’s Dad tribute list. The contenders include the Shangri-Las’ Leader of the Pack, Jan & Dean’s Dead Man’s Curve and the profoundly schmaltzy Tell Laura I Love Her. (“That’d bring the house down,” raves Barry. “Laura’s mom could sing it!”)

Thanks to screenwriter Diablo Cody, Juno MacGuff protects her soft underbelly with an armada of witty barbs. Confronted with the teary gratitude of the woman who might adopt her baby, Juno quips, “You should’ve gone to China, you know, ‘cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those T-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.” When Juno’s water breaks, in place of the oh-my-God-it’s-actually-happening breakdown typical of most baby-having-a-baby films, Juno roars “THUNDERCATS ARE GO!” If that reference to the cult ‘80s cartoon series flew right over your head, you’re obviously not hip enough to hang with Juno’s crew.

It’s not that these record geeks are against sentimentality entirely — naked emotion can be cool when it comes in the form of an expertly crafted lyric or that perfect pop hook. Explaining the “subtle art” of making a good mix tape, Rob Gordon says, “You’re using someone else’s poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing.”

In Juno’s case, much of the soul-baring is done by singer Kimya Dawson, a girlish-voiced singer/songwriter best known as one-half of sweetly goofy anti-folk duo the Moldy Peaches. (Their biggest “hit” was an insistently catchy extended joke called Who’s Got the Crack?.) Dawson’s solo material, which makes up the bulk of Juno’s soundtrack, is arty and awkward, played on acoustic guitars with hushed, pretty melodies. We’re not talking the epic abstraction of a song like Making Love Out Of Nothing At All, but rather declarations of almost childlike adoration. “Sometimes the world is dark and cold,” Dawson sings in Hold My Hand, “and no matter what I’m told / I’m scared and I’m alone / and I’m five years old / Will you hold my hand?” Dawson’s unabashedly sappy ballads are the only contemporary tunes Juno seems to tolerate. And just as the Beta Band’s shimmery Dry the Rain provided a cathartic plot point in High Fidelity, the Moldy Peaches’ love song Anyone Else But You helps Juno kiss and make up with her long-suffering baby-daddy, Paulie (Michael Cera).

As the story goes, director Jason Reitman grilled Page about what tracks she thought might appear on her character’s personal playlist. Dawson was her number-one pick. It’s not the first time the Halifax-bred Page has helped shape a film’s narrative by serving as indie-rock tastemaker. While prepping for her role as a runaway in Bruce McDonald’s brutal The Tracey Fragments, Page listened to Patti Smith’s Horses album on repeat. The result? A faithful cover of the title track (by Montreal’s Liz Powell) becomes a rock ‘n’ roll phantom of the character’s psychic turmoil.

Critics are already declaring the 20-year-old Page this year’s indie It Girl and predicting Oscar accolades. Talented as the kid is, it’s her insight into music’s ability to create emotional narratives that I think sets her apart. As a film, Juno has its flaws: each character schleps at least one precious quirk like a monkey on his or her back, and Cody’s screenplay is compulsive in its clever-cleverness. But in Juno MacGuff, the world has been given a female counterpart to High Fidelity’s sanctimonious rock ‘n’ roll fanboys. It’s about time.

Sarah Liss writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.

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