Janet Planet
Janet Planet
Subtlety wins the day in Annie Baker's debut mommy-daughter feature
Director: Annie Baker
Cast: Julianne Nicholson, Sophie Okonedo, Elias Koteas, Will Patton, Zoe Ziegler
What it’s about: 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home in rural Western Massachusetts, engrossed in her own imagination and her mother Janet's attention. As the months pass, three visitors enter their orbit, all captivated by Janet.
News and Notes:
Premiered at Telluride 2023
Screened in Berlinale’s “Panorama” section
On-the-ground Schmear (Public Screening): See below
Playwright Annie Baker’s debut feature, Janet Planet, started with a curmudgeonly German audience member yelling “too loud,” to which the theater promptly turned down the volume, rendering the dialogue a little hard to hear.
Luckily, Janet Planet is a quiet movie—a low-key feat that gradually and unhurriedly won me over.
Set during a buggy 1991 Massachusetts summer, the film starts with a suicide threat coming from a not-quite-serious but definitely too-precocious preteen named Lacy (Zoe Ziegler). Despite just receiving a troll doll from a potential new friend, Lacy is lonely, missing her mother, and wanting to leave camp. Janet (Julianne Nicholson, Mare of Easttown) dutifully but exasperatingly picks her up, thus kicking off an offbeat, mommy-daughter summer.
The film, split into three parts, with each part named for a new figure flitting in and out of Janet and Lacy’s lives, is chock-full of warm moments, slow scenes, beautiful observations, and rich characters.
Fair warning: not too much happens in Janet Planet. It’s a credit to the tremendous cast of pros-pros that this film and its world are brought to such vivid life. Sophie Okonedo, Elias Koteas, and Will Patton imbue supporting roles with much pathos. Nicholson is astounding, and owlish newcomer Zoe Ziegler is so perfect that I was immediately googling Janet Planet’s casting director (it’s Jessica Kelly, Euphoria)
Not only does acclaimed playwright Annie Baker clearly have a knack for faces and performance, but she also has an earthy, humane sense of humor, typified in a tick-killing scene as well as a mellow drug trip that ends with a hysterical visual gag.
Janet Planet is about what you see, hear, and pick up as a kid. The film is set in a notably phone-less era that seems totally boring at times. Lacy entertains herself with music, crafts, and puppetry that are downright old-fashioned by today’s standards but end up artistically stimulating for children.
Lacy’s biggest entertainment, though, both a perverse and enchanting one, is her mother. Janet is complicated, flawed, and lovely. We’re told that Janet is a people magnet, and with Nicholson’s charismatic performance, we fully understand this to be true. She tries, but is unable to hide a maelstrom of emotion from her perceptive daughter.
The average coming-of-age story typically involves lots of friends. Janet Planet is a coming-of-age tale by the proxy of a flawed single parent. In this respect, Janet Planet shares much in common with Charlotte Wells’ moving paean to her father, fellow A24 flick Aftersun.
Comparing such personal, individualized films feels gauche, but both films succeed through subtlety, mystery, and an abundance of indefinable feeling. Janet Planet, by dint of its languid pace, may not pummel audiences as hard, but its mnemonic and reflective nature will have you feeling feels long after the credits roll.
Verdict:
"Janet Planet" explores the nuances of mother-daughter relationships and childhood nostalgia, buoyed by a stellar cast and Annie Baker's poignant storytelling, leaving a lasting impression through its powerful subtlety.