Janet Planet, 2024.
Written and Directed by Annie Baker.
Starring Julianne Nicholson, Zoe Ziegler, Sophie Okonedo, Elias Koteas, Will Patton, June Walker Grossman, Abby Harri, Edie Moon Kearns, Mary Beth Brooker, and Mary Shultz.
SYNOPSIS:
In rural Western Massachusetts, 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home, enthralled by her own imagination and the attention of her mother, Janet. As the months pass, three visitors enter their orbit, all captivated by Janet.
Entrenched in the deeply specific early 1990s rural Massachusetts remote woodland home summertime setting in Janet Planet is, for some, a universal look at the initial instances of a young child recognizing that their parents are not infallible, make mistakes, and, in some cases, might be walking the line between neglect and prioritizing other areas of life. Award-winning playwright Annie Baker (making her cinematic writing and directorial debut here) is presumably pulling from her upbringing (there is simply no other way to explain the audiovisual attention to detail), choosing to demonstrate that through 11-year-old Lucy (Zoe Ziegler delivering a revelatory child performance) observing her mother Janet (Julianne Nicholson) through the prism of the questionable men she chooses to date.
Anyone who has ever found themselves quietly judging the dating decisions of a parent should find themselves affected here. The script is sharply written in a manner that conveys the crowding and clashing thoughts that must be going through the mind of Lacy. At one point, Janet’s friend Regina (Sophie Okonedo) brings up the topic and asks Lacy if her mom has bad taste in men. The girl responds yes but immediately gives some slight resistance when the woman agrees as if she knows it’s true but doesn’t want anyone but herself to acknowledge it since it is her mother, after all. It’s the typical “well, what do you know” remark, in this case, aware that this friend was suckered into an actual hippie cult (led by Elias Koteas) before leaving.
Like the film’s slow pacing, Lacy gradually elicits more complex emotions toward and about her mother through several small interactions. Sporting glasses with a quiet disposition, Lacy is also prone to have forthright outbursts. Even if she had more friends, it doesn’t seem like there is much to do in this part of the state, meaning that she relies on her mother for company perhaps more than the average child. Aside from the occasional piano lesson with an elderly instructor, Lacy feels every prolonged second of those drawn-out summer days.
Again, Lacy is also a child unsure of what she wants and quick to change her mind; the opening sees her sneaking out of a summer camp at night to phone her mom and dryly threatening that she is going to kill herself if she isn’t picked up. However, one cut later, at the end of summer camp, she has made friends and would seemingly rather stay than go home to her mom, currently dating the unpleasant and uncaring Wayne (Will Patton).
The one upside to that collapsing relationship is that Wayne does have a daughter from a previous significant other, whom Lacy gets to spend time with and, in one of the film’s more arresting segments due to stellar production design work, wander around the mall together unsupervised getting up to hijinks as kids would often do when the 90s. There is also some unexpected startling horror imagery in the presentation of Wayne, most notably in a sequence where he has a painful migraine and is shot in darkness, increasingly getting more hostile and demanding Lacy be removed from the living room while asking questions.
There is no overstating the impressive immersion into this time frame, considering there isn’t much narrative momentum or conventional emotional weight to the proceedings. Every aspect of the sound design comes across as carefully considered to an obsessive degree, whether it be ambient nature sounds or a lawnmower drifting in and out of audibility. With a nearly two-hour running time, Janet Planet certainly indulges in some respects and sometimes plain drags, but that shakiness is consistently elevated by the measured performances and the nuanced dynamic between mother and daughter that is changing, fracturing even, but without conforming to clear-cut good and bad labels or out-of-place melodrama.
Janet is carefully depicted as understanding and empathetic to her daughter’s needs (there is a tender moment where she gives the girl a strand of hair to keep with her, as she would prefer a piece of her mother if she isn’t going to sleep in her bed together), gets that her daughter wants more time together away from questionable partners and friends, but is too wrapped up in other people and unhappy to give it. Likewise, Janet Planet isn’t all-consuming, but it’s a meticulously crafted study of a young girl’s evolving perception of her mother and self, with Annie Baker distinctly pulling from her life.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
