I love movies that inspire a positive reception, and then a backlash, and then an anti-backlash. That’s the sign of a film that’s getting under our cultural skins, and the big winner in that regard, neatly wrapping up 2007, was “Juno,” a smart little film that positions itself somewhere between the emotional uncertainty of “Garden State” and the juvenile self-discovery of “Superbad.”

The controversy over “Juno” ? specifically over whether it’s a good or a bad movie ? is coming from many directions, including Roger Ebert, who called it his favorite movie of the year, Ty Burr of the Boston Globe, who calls it the “smart, hip human comedy you’ve been waiting for all year,” and (across the fence) Jim DeRogatis, a critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, who says he hated the movie… apparently citing his experience with teenagers, feminism, and movies in general. DeRogantis in particular critiqued the film by way of its soundtrack, locating a hip insincerity in both the music and in the portrayal of the characters.

Of course, the anti-backlash responded, quite right, that reality is too fuzzy for a movie to be blamed for its lack of documentary accuracy. They also responded that there are, indeed, kids out there who, even at sixteen, are smart and unreasonably wise about their lives and their situations. I feel enough has been said about the film’s respect for “reality” (note the scare quotes), and about its soundtrack’s appropriateness to the characters portrayed. I’d prefer to look at the film from an aesthetic point of view, and to read it as a critique, rather than reading it in terms of hipness or accuracy.

What distinguishes “Juno” as a critique — specifically as a character critique, with a special emphasis on age, maturity, and gender — was its ability to interrogate our assumptions by playing to them and then breaking them back down. If you’re like me, you may have reflected on the characters halfway through the movie, and the film may actually have seemed a little sexist. By the time Juno was confronting Bleeker about going to the prom, the archetypes had been set up: all of the primary males (Bleeker, Mark, and Dad) were even-tempered, respectable, admirable characters in the classic “good guy” mold. Juno, Vanessa, and Bren, the three primary female characters, were all being set up as slightly neurotic, volatile personalities, and they seemed framed to cause whatever looming conflict was about to materialize.

Didn’t you feel, at first, that Vanessa was a bit of a neurotic yuppie, oppressing Mark’s perfectly reasonable desire for freedom? Didn’t Bren seem a little overbearing and snappy when she declared to Juno, “He’s married! There are some boundaries that you just shouldn’t cross?” It was subtle, but the film was establishing some gender expectations through its gendered characters, including Juno herself, who pulled a little bit of an emotional freakout on Bleeker in the hallway. If it had taken its plot in the most conventional direction… if it had followed up on these expectations… it would have been a tragically stereotype-affirming film, a la “Hitch,” Will Smith’s masterpiece of gender stereotyping.

But that’s not what happens. I won’t discuss plot details, but by the end of the film, “Juno” turns from a batch of established roles into a critique of those roles. Not every stereotype is fully overturned, but the characters work out differently than we were led to expect, and the ambiguity of their dynamic — especially the dynamic between Mark and Vanessa — leads us to a greater appreciation of Juno herself, a smart, controlled feminine character, wise beyond her years, but still in need of space and freedom to grow.

It may be worth noting that the pregnancy, and all its attendant issues of birth control, hardship, and stigmatization, was peripheral to the real substance of the film. The feminist question isn’t addressed in terms of womanhood and creation. Rather, it’s addressed in the portrayal of females both mobilizing and undermining their gender roles, and especially in its main character, who is the kind of rounded, admirable female that’s still tragically rare in entertainment media.