Janet Planet

A smallish drama from last year starring Julianne Nicholson & newcomer Zoe Ziegler, playing a mother/daughter navigating the lazy days of summer during the early 90's. Living in a cozy cabin in the woods, the pair while away the days waiting for the new school year to start while also taking care of their romantic needs; mom seems to be unlucky in love as her conveyor belt of lovers (which include Will Patton & Elias Koteas) has left her unsatisfied while Ziegler, seemingly wise beyond the years, does things her own way w/her mom's begrudging acceptance. Not much monumentally happens in this slow burn slice of life as it just exists & we, the audience, just wallow in it which charms in tiny doses in writer/director Annie Baker's effort making this feel like a documentary then something scripted.

There are many glowing reviews of this movie, but mine is not. Although there is some dialogue in this movie, the experience would hardly be altered if the sound track were muted. And, in fact, segments of the dialogue are so low-pitched that one cannot make out what is said at all. No loss!

Basically we have here a mother who is looking for a companion that will make her feel she is living an adequate life. She is housing and feeding her daughter and herself and a revolving door of successive possible saviors, but she isn't finding personal salvation. Only initial ones that somehow are unsatisfactory after a brief trial.

Rave reviews underplay the monotony of the movie and its absence of progress toward satisfaction. She cohabits with believers in Buddha, in mysterious nature, in big bang but, frankly, neither herself nor her chosen teachers of a "way" exhibit any understanding.

We end up with the daughter having reached exactly these conclusions, along with the audience, so at least we part on the same page.

The movie invites the viewer to look for symbolism, an allegory. The mother's search is perhaps that of humanity, and her "saviors" perhaps the abortive philosophical attempts of mankind. The daughter is the hope that a new generation will be more successful. And, perhaps, the final square dance is the admission that, like a dance, life's meaning is that it can be enjoyable for the moment, even though it will end and will be forgotten.

My title for this review and my summary: not illuminating.

11 year old Lacy is exceedingly close with her single mother Janet (Julianne Nicholson). It's 1991. She threatens suicide to get out of summer camp to be home with her mother.

This is not for everyone and I'm not sure that it is for me. This movie is slow. The scenes are long and extended. Some of it is like watching paint dry. You do get to live inside this world and with this family. There are some fun ideas like the cult. The men are mostly forgettable. In the end, this is just too slow for the general public. It takes a specific audience and I can't give this a generalized recommendation.

I am pretty baffled by the critical response to this movie, as I usually see pretty eye to eye with them. This thing was so dry and boring that I could hardly believe it. There is hardly any moment that breathed any kind of life or spark, apart from an admittedly sweet and nostalgic JC Penny's sequence - which felt more like it benefitted from just being a trip down memory lane than anything else.

There is hardly any story movement, and what few lines of dialogue can be heard are almost completely useless. Half of them are just the little girl asking basic questions which don't get answered. And lines like "I'm going to kill myself if you don't come pick me up" and "It's funny, every moment of my life is a living hell" are just obnoxious in this day and age.

Now granted, the AC was broken in our theater so that may have also had something to do with our discomfort. But we still walked out of the theater after 40 minutes. The filmmaker is talented I'm sure, but this one just wasn't for me at all.

I mean, if I lean any closer in the theater to hear what you're showing and saying to me, Most Quiet and Tender Little Mother-Daughter How I Spent My Not-Much Summer Vacation Movie of the Last (checks watch) 10 Years, I think I may just fall head-first through the screen and poke out the other side!

The 'Not-Much' may not be totally fair to say, as there are moments and events that are happening in Janet Planet, but why it feels like the 'Not-Much' is because it is a film punctuated practically solely by Life's Little Moments. At the same time, what makes the film so unique, even special, is that writer/director Annie Baker is giving us a child-hood perspective that is morose, possibly depressed, but it's at a low key. The whole film is so at a low key that if you were outside you'd need a shovel to dig into the ground to find where the film is presenting its emotional bandwidth.

Or... that may also not be fair since this is about ultimately how a daughter and a mother have their own problems in life, for Lacy in just connecting to those around her (except for the one time she gets a friend, all too short lived but still a vibrant and alive few minutes both in a lifetime and in the movie), and for Janet with her love lifes with men and women equally. What makes these relationships so unique is how everything, from the shots (sometimes withdrawn so we can see much of the forest and trees and peaceful woods around them and Lacy at one point lying on the ground to where she wants to get away from us as much as her life) to the delivery is, if not at a tender whisper, then certainly (rarely) wirh a raised voice.

I'm not familiar with Baker's plays, but I do think I can respond to and meet a filmmaker halfway when they are creating a set of characters who we don't usually see in not only modern American film but even in other independent cinema throughout the world (maybe the closest to the ultra-delicate feeling here is Wenders and Perfect Days, or some of Kelly Reichardt's work, but even then there's a weirder tone at points and some humor to elevate things), and I like the act of leaning in to, in short, feel what the movie is putting between the lines. This is a spare, deceptively small drama because is about how nothing in life is small when you are attuned to nuances.

For example, the dynamic with Janet and Regina (Okonedo, easily my favorite here for the warmth and uncertainty and nuances even compared to Nicholson, who is always lovely); we never fully know how they met or even if they are trying to fully be a couple together at this time. When they are together though, notice how much Baker is moving from the sort of "I'm sitting in the back trying to figure you out" shots that Lacy has with Wayne (Will Patton! Love that guy) so it is more immediate feeling, but at the same time there are more wounds and fractures in their bond, and that perhaps Lacy can intuit but still isn't fully mature enough to understand (so we know she hears them as they have what amounts to a "heated" argument midway through, which is at... normal volume for most of us but for the film it's like "whoa").

There's a lot of interesting choices to how Lacy looks and acts here that are so minute that I also get why if you come to this not ready for something that is quiet and patient and (I won't use it but maybe others will, it is a "type") Slow, it may frustrate because of how long it takes till... wait, by the end where are Lacy and Janet? She has the slightest expression as she watches all that dancing, and if she doesn't get up then she may still some day, and that's enough.

If there is something I wish could've been explored more it was with Avi, played by such a soft-spoken Elias Koteas that it is rather brilliant (the kind of man where because of his soft tone it takes a moment and strong critical thinking skills to understand what he says and preaches is a bunch of crap). By the time he is there and this Janet-described Cult leader is making moves on her and influenced Janet to do deep-breathing Hippie exercises, he is... gone again, and not in a way that feels satisfyingly mysterious rather that he had to leave the set.

Janet Planet, in other words, is involving if you get on its wavelength about a young girl who (with a couple of exceptions) keeps the same even-keeled vocal tone and yet is affected by something or many things but holds them inside the shell of an average kid that plays piano and sometimes sits quietly with a wind up music box.

There is a nice poetry to its world view and presentation, while at the same time it never transfixed me or made me feel like I'd seen something so unique that I'd need to think about it for days or weeks (like again Wenders or Reichardt at their most keen). It unfolds closer to a good book than a typical script, which I don't mean as a put down, and if nothing else it's nice to have one of these truly feel written (with captivating and real dialog, especially about sexual preference at one point) rather than so loose and improvised that it loses itself completely.