‘Janet Planet’: The Questions from Children and the Careful Answers from Parents

Annie Baker’s Janet Planet exists in that tender, sensitive place when we looked at our mothers as if they were our entire world. Out mothers can be our first teachers and our first main source of comfort. Because of the love we receive from them, we are capable of going out into the world with the confidence to find our own purpose while still whiling away in the paradise of childhood. In Baker’s film, the way that one young girl looks at her mother unlocks the door to go beyond one formative summer.

Julianne Nicholson’s face is captured with effortless care in a performance of quiet naturalism as Janet, an acupuncturist living in Massachusetts in 1991. The film opens with her young daughter, Lacy, running down a hill to call her mother in the middle of the night to request a pickup from camp. As Lacy waits for her the next morning, she realizes that she’s made a mistake but Janet tells her that she can’t change her mind. There is something in the hug between them, shot from the perspective of Lacy’s friends campmates watchin from a distance, that makes us feel like we can sense their relationship even from far away.

Baker’s film is sectioned off into near vignettes to feature the people that Janet brings into their home over the course of the rest of the summer. Lacy returns home and invades the time spent between her mother and her boyfriend, Wayne (a fantastic Will Patton). A blunt and inquisitive child, Lacy makes friends with Wayne’s daughter from a previous relationship and bugs him too much about spending more time with her. There are moments where it feels like Wayne is avoiding looking at Lacy, and, ultimately, the camera as if his is trying to not catch our eyes.

Sophie Okonedo’s Regina, a performance artist, moves into the attic space to help her get back n her fee, and her conversations with Lacy are some of the best of the film. There is a familiarity between them since Regina is Janet’s friend, but Lacy still regards Regina with wonder as an adult who shows her attention and respect. As Regina struggles to find work, she talks to Lacy about Janet’s bad taste in men and how Lacy doesn’t have friends. Okonedo delivers a warm, intelligent performance.

As different people move in and out of Janet and Lacy’s orbit, we see how Janet bends and adapts to them, and Lacy observes this from a front row. With Will, Janet tried to help with his physical ailments, and she explores her own self-growth with Elias Koteas’ Avi. Without being asked, we see how Lacy takes in new people, her eyes always focusing as she watches interactions play out between her mother and others. Zoe Ziegler is marvelous with her blank stare and her warm smile–she holds her own so well.

We latch onto Lacy’s stare on her mother, but then we notice Nicholson returning that watchful eye. Perhaps she was just as inquisitive and curious when she was Lacy’s age, but she has refined that gaze into something more potent and patient. Nicholson always feels like she has a secret, her characters nervous or even scared to reveal a deeply held truth, but she embraces Janet’s honesty. There is a moment between mother and daughter towards the end of the film where they discover a potential path in Lacy’s identity, and Janet puts her confusion and concern on the table. The dialogue is simple but charged with curiosity and care. Nicholson’s performance is beautifully calibrated as a character who knows she owes her daughter as much truth as she can possibly give her while taking her age into consideration.

Do our parents know they will have to reveal truths to us in time? Are they waiting for it and trying to find the right words? Janet Planet is a film that hones in on the wonder of childhood as we begin to ask more questions and edge towards a more serious adolescence. Baker’s film is a tender lullaby with wry humor and sharp observations.

Janet Planet is playing now in theaters.