Janet Planet

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.

This isn't a terrible movie, but is lacking in originality. I think that, given time, director Annie Baker will find her own voice instead of trying to be Greta Gerwig. If she works with Zoe Ziegler again, she'll hopefully stop trying to turn her into the new young Saoirse Ronan, too, and let Zoe act in her own way, as I suspect she can.

The basic plot here has been done, in various ways, in many, many far better movies. Baker tried to stuff too much in here, too. The subplot, if you can call it that, about the mother was incomplete and distracted from what the young girl was going through as she was dealing with the changes she was experiencing. Sure, the relation between the mother and daughter was integral to the film, but seemed incomplete, never resolved. It was never really examined in the depth it could have been. That might have been due to the slow pace of the movie. Too little happened over too much time.

The men in the movie were never really fleshed out, either. Most obvious was "Wayne", who was sort of a good guy, but at the same time, not. We never really got to know anything about him, other than he had a nice daughter.

By sheer coincidence I just saw "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret." a couple of days before I saw "Janet Planet". One could argue they are wildly different movies, but at the same time, they do cover similar topics. "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret." is far better, more entertaining, and more realistic. It's fun. "Janet Planet" is dull in comparison.

But the biggest and most obvious comparison that jumps out at you as you watch "Janet Planet" would be between it and "Lady Bird". They are much more similar films than the one I mentioned above. And "Lady Bird" is much, much better.

As I said, this isn't a terrible film. I look forward to seeing what Baker can do in the future. I'm sure she has a much better film in her.

As an aside, the best song in the movie was "Miracle Man" by Bob Carpenter. Too bad it was associated with the "Wayne" character.

Janet Planet encourages the viewer to bask in the hazy summer afternoon feel of lounging and allowing observation to be a better tool than explanation. The writing is conversational and also sparse in terms of plotting, where you watch the characters lives unfold like a poem. There are few twists and turns but more contemplation and quiet celebration of independence, motherhood, and adolescence. There was a lot of wisdom in the casual observations, something that added to the realism of dialogue. Conversations you could have with a mother or a friend. Janet Planet has no big climactic moment, in fact I would call the ending it's climax and leaves you pretty clear on what the message was. It is a satisfying film if you are patient with it.

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.