'Janet Planet' review: Orbiting a coming of age story with a fine eye
Julianne Nicholson stars in very low-key drama about a relationship between a daughter and her mother.
A small, keenly observed drama with a rich eye for detail and a knowing sense of its place in the world, "Janet Planet" isn't going to shake your foundation, but it may make you exhale a deep sigh of relief.
Zoe Ziegler is maladjusted 11-year-old Lacy, Julianne Nicholson is her acupuncturist single mother, Janet. Writer-director Annie Baker takes us inside their world and lets us observe the micro-rhythms of their life with a sense of remove so quiet and still that a sneeze would feel like an action sequence.
The movie opens with Lacy calling her mother from summer camp, threatening to kill herself if she doesn't come pick her up. She's not really suicidal, but she knows mom will come get her, and she's immediately regretful when she sees she's brought along her boyfriend Wayne (Will Patton) along with her for the ride.
Moreso she's miffed that Wayne is around at all, but he's not around for long. He's the first of a revolving door of significant others that Janet cycles through — see also Regina (Sophie Okonedo) and Avi (Elias Koteas) — as she figures out her own world, and where she fits into it. In their own ways, both Janet and Lacy are coming of age.
The setting is the early '90s woodsy Massachusetts, and the tone is dryly observational. Lacy and her mother have frank conversations, Janet replying with candor and honesty beyond her daughter's comprehension. Yet there's truth in their interactions, and that's what Baker zeroes in, both in her script and her direction. On the surface, it may appear that nothing much happens in "Janet's Planet," but dig a little bit deeper and it's all there.
'Janet Planet'
GRADE: B
Rated PG-13: for brief strong language, some drug use and thematic elements
Running time: 112 minutes
In theaters