If you didn’t like Garden State and you’re thinking about seeing Juno, the independent comedy about teen pregnancy, let me say this: maybe don’t see this film. While Juno is far superior and more worthy of your time, the two films share enough similarities to make Garden State’s more pretentious foes retreat to their rooms to watch Jim Jarmusch films on their MacBook Pros. Both are smart, funny, coming of age stories featuring a young cast and accompanied by a quaint, distinctively indie pop soundtrack. Juno’s music is cute. With bands like Belle and Sebastian and Moldy Peaches singing to the audience that everything will be just fine, it’s cute enough to make even the most pedophobic boyfriend shrug and say, “Well, teen pregnancy can’t be that bad, can it?”

A fairly late film for Oscar season, Juno grabbed several nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay, which it won. This was a fantastic feat for such a young ensemble. The director, Jason Reitman, whose wit was apparent in his last film, Thank You for Smoking, shows again in Juno his taste for smart, quick, comedic dialogue. Ellen Page, whose performance in Hard Candy was good in a horrifying way, is the film’s eponymous star, a lovable and self-aware sixteen-year-old. She boasts an impressive taste in music and offers amusing commentary on the subcultures of her suburban high school. The trouble starts when she finds out that her little “best-friend romp” with Pauly Bleeker, played by Michael Cera of Superbad fame, has produced an heir.

After considering other options, Juno decides to give the child up for adoption. The adopting couple is Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner. He is a would-be rock guitarist, reluctant about parenthood, and she is a motivated professional, eager to exercise her well-researched maternal skills. They have wanted a child for a while, but the process of adopting Juno’s baby occasions just as much gleeful anticipation as nervous second-guessing. Ms. Garner is exceptional as a wife whose yearning for a child is so powerful even her collapsing marriage, over the issue of Mr. Bateman’s cold feet, fails to thwart her drive for motherhood. Mr. Bateman is mostly likeable, as his music tastes bring Juno and he into friendship, but his balking at fatherhood renders Ms. Garner in a more positive light and allows her to be more of a hero, in the end.

The script for Juno, penned by new writing sensation Diablo Cody, steers clear of too much sentimentality, and the irony here wouldn’t make Wes Anderson jealous, either. Ms. Cody chooses instead to explore the genuine thoughts and emotions in the life of a young girl forced to grow up way too fast. It’s a feel-good story, no doubt, but a smart one, and Ms. Cody’s self-deprecating sense of humor makes its way through her characters wonderfully. Known before Juno for her memoir Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper, she hysterically captures adolescence amidst adult and peer scrutiny and feelings of personal insecurity. And although Juno is a bit more self-aware than one would expect from a girl her age, the embellishment can be forgiven. Ms. Cody’s memoir shows her to be a brilliant woman wary of pretense, and maybe that’s why Juno was so good, and why the Academy’s honoring it was so fitting.