Why I Saw It: This is the definition of a passion project. Allison Burnett wrote the book this is based off, wrote the screenplay, and directed the movie. When done well, I like that kind of focus on the material. Robertson mines the charm of Juno and drops the Diablo Cody dialogue. She's good in this. I much preferred her more comedic beats, but when asked to be more serious, she could do that too. The cast is filled with people who I was happy to see: Kimberly Williams-Paisley (She and her sister are delightful), Gia Mantegna (Joe's daughter. I like her in The Middle too), Robert Patrick and Martin Sheen (I love those old guys). I think the ending is interesting. It certainly caught me off guard. I like the idea that it's open-ended and points out that we've been hearing the story of the blog so far, not "the truth". You don't see many movies exploring the unreliable narrator angle like that.
Why I Wish I Hadn't: I suppose this is almost entirely dependent on how much the end of the movie is supposed to affect the rest of it. Until the last few minutes, this is a textbook "indie movie". You know, the young people talk with self-aware wit, I'm convinced that as much time was put into choosing the soundtrack as writing the screenplay, she gets a job at a local book store, of course she was molested as a child, etc. Without that ending, this would've been way too generic. Now, there's two ways to look at this. 1) The ending is a last minute attempt to make the story more substantial or 2) the whole movie is excerpts from a blog, written by a teenager, who is both unreliable and likely to play into the indie movie tropes when recounting her life. I lean toward the former because a few too many of the "confirmed" facts about her life still play pretty heavily into these tropes. It made me think a lot more about the movie than I would've otherwise, so that's a success.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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