Janet Planet
When the young, melancholic Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) begs her mother Janet (Julianne Nicholson) to pick her up from summer camp early, it feels urgent. “I’m going to kill myself,” she says. “I said I’m going to kill myself if you don’t come get me.” But when Janet arrives the next morning, Lacy’s tune has changed “I thought nobody liked me, but I was wrong.” Her mother responds flatly: “This is a bad pattern.”
It’s a laugh line that quickly establishes their dynamic: a daughter who can’t let go of her mother and a mother who wonders if she should teach the girl how to be without her. Shouldn’t an 11 year old still be holding on so tightly? Does an almost 40 year old need to create more distance? Lacy watches Janet constantly, eyes focused behind wire framed glasses. Even at night she struggles to sleep without her lying next to her; this particular evening when Janet tries to leave the bed, Lacy asks for a piece of her. Janet pulls out a strand of hair and hands it over, Lacy looks at it like it’s love itself.
Annie Baker’s directorial debut adapts “Janet Planet” is as spare and contemplative as her writing for the stage. The Pulitzer Prize winning playwright paints a lush portrait of a mother and daughter living in rural Massachusetts in 1991 walking steadily through grass and tall trees, carving out a quiet life together that works with even just its title underscoring the way Lacy’s world is crafted in Janet’s image, everything about being alive as taught by Ms. Planet.
Janet works from home as an acupuncturist, which means she can help Wayne (Will Patton), her boyfriend who lives across town and does not speak very much English well or often right now because he is too old for it. There’s a sense that he needs her to be nurturing in his life, that she cares about him enough to keep doing so, and then Lacy has to compete with Wayne for her mother’s time and affection. We learn through dialogue that Janet tends to date men who aren’t right for her but it’s unclear why this is the case, from an 11 year old’s perspective. At first we only see Janet as her daughter sees her in small windows of time, filtered by 11 year old thoughts about what mothers should be like and so Wayne feels like a third wheel. But much of the conflict is slight enough to go undetected by a stranger, they are quiet people with quiet lives together. It’s all very hushed, their silence contains loud emotional uncertainty.
“Janet Planet” is a story about Lacy and her mother. The narrative takes us through a few months in their lives, as people come in and out of Janet’s world. When she isn’t with Janet, Lacy fills her time with piano lessons and playing with her mini stage of tiny figures. She doesn’t have any friends, which is “a complete mystery” to her though from the outside, it seems clear. She’s too in love with her mother to let anyone else in. While there are moments of bonding with other kids, most notably Wayne’s daughter Sequoia, Lacy prefers the company of her mom and other adults who foster her precociousness.
The movie’s most dynamic scene finds Janet and Lacy watching an outdoor performance with elaborate costumes and poetic dialogue. This comes after Janet has broken up with Wayne, making herself a free agent again. With the full beauty of their surroundings on display, Janet and Lacy are momentarily transported from their quiet (often frustrating) life to a place that feels magical, where anything could happen. This moment also reveals the pattern of their life together Janet goes from lover to lover while Lacy watches, there are small pockets where they’re alone together and they cling onto each other and heal.
There have been plenty of films made about single moms raising their children but what sets “Janet Planet” apart is how it depicts being a little girl who grows up watching your mother live with equal curiosity and empathy. In one of the film’s best scenes maybe even its centerpiece Janet is getting high with her friend Regina (Sophie Okonedo), monologuing about all the things that happened to them when they were young until now. Regina talks about growing up poor, finding out who sent an anonymous letter to her dad that changed everything, etcetera And then we come over to Janet who starts talking about choices and how she feels like people judge her for them more than herself even does or did already. As Regina realizes what’s happening here between these two friends who’ve known each other forever, she tells Janet not to delude herself or rationalize bad choices made in romance and life.
Once the conflict is over, we realize that Lacy has been sitting there this whole time quietly listening to an adult conversation about her mother’s past that indirectly concerns her. She’s the product of Janet’s choices after all, she is her mom’s legacy and she knows it (despite being just a kid).
Nicholson and Ziegler are so perfect together onscreen; their performances are filled with joy, sadness, introspection, empathy everything you want from actors playing opposite one another. Our time with them as an audience feels precious Janet Planet establishes a level of closeness between women and girls that TV has mostly abandoned in recent years. It feels like we spend one whole season with this little family but still somehow not nearly enough time.
The world Baker creates for her characters is rich, warm, beautiful by the time character actor Elias Koteas arrives as Avi (another potential lover for Janet), the film is winding down toward its poetic conclusion. It’s sad to see our time with these characters come to an end though thankfully we can always visit “Janet Planet” again.
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