JANET PLANET -- Annie Baker's Remarkable and Thought-Provoking Film Debut

Review by Camden Ferrell

For years, Annie Baker has been a name associated with her acclaimed work as a playwright, even winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for The Flick. Her debut feature film as a writer and director had its premiere at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival. Janet Planet is a grounded yet often profound coming-of-age story that translates her sensibilities to screen well while serving as a showcase for her talented cast.
 
In the early 90’s, Janet is an acupuncturist who is spending the summer in rural Massachusetts alongside her daughter Lacy. Throughout the summer, Janet brings three different people into their lives: her boyfriend, a friend, and the leader of a local theater group. Lacy spends the summer interacting with these individuals as she vies for her mother’s attention and as she explores childhood and her own imagination. This is a story that is right up Baker’s wheelhouse as a writer, and it’s the perfect backdrop for the kind of everyday stories she became successful telling.
 
Baker’s script is superb and the best part of the movie. Her style of dialogue translates very well as a feature film, and it’s toeing a subtle line from start to finish. It is grounded enough to remain realistic and immersive, but it’s meticulously crafted enough to engage audiences and encourage thought and reflection. The movie never feels like it’s filler, and it never feels overwritten. It’s a delicate balance that Baker perfectly demonstrates in her film debut, and it’s hard to leave this movie not being utterly impressed with the themes and ideas she explores so naturally.

In addition to the writing, the movie boasts two stellar performances from Julianne Nicholson and Zoe Ziegler as Janet and Lacy, respectively. Their chemistry is stellar from the start. Nicholson captures an alluring and earthly aura that is imperative in defining her character and the relationships with the people in her life. Ziegler plays off of Nicholson in such an impressive manner for a young actress. She handles the material well and understands Baker’s sense of pacing that helps capture the process of growing up in such a unique way.
 
I think it’s disingenuous to call this a coming-of-age movie despite that being what it is. However, I don’t want to group it with other movies in that genre because this one doesn’t feel like it belongs with them. It’s an extremely subtle look at childhood, the borderline codependent attachments we form with our parents, and the slow and stumbly disillusionment with them. One of the only critiques I can make of the movie is that Baker’s use of her signature pregnant pauses can sometimes be too gratuitous for its own good, but those pauses are otherwise imperative to how this movie operates that you forgive the times it overstays its welcome.
 
Janet Planet is a quiet and tender movie about a mother and daughter, their bond, and the forces and people at work in their lives one summer. Baker has showed that the medium of film is one that she can also conquer, and I sincerely hope we see a lot more from her going forward. Smartly written and wonderfully acted, this is a movie worth checking out.
 
Janet Planet is in theaters June 21.
 
Rating: 4/5