Janet Planet

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker’s first foree into cinema stars the always wonderful Julianne Nicholson as the titular Janet, and acupuncturist living in western Massachusetts with her 11-year-old daughter Lacy (Zoe Ziegler). As the days casually roll along, three visitors come in and out of their lives, all drawn in by Janet's quiet, disarming presence. Janet Planet's deliberate pacing, seemingly ordinary characters dealing with relatively normal issues, and lack of what we'd traditionally refer to as narrative momentum are in line with Baker's theatrical work, in which her characters occupy time and space in much the same way the audience does. I've only seen one of Baker's plays—the one that won the Pulitzer, The Flick, which happens to take place in a run-down Massachusetts movie theater and centers on the mundane lives of three of the theater's employees, all of whom I found extremely relatable. Even though The Flick might be the work of Baker's that's destined to resonate most with me, I have a feeling I'll enjoy more of her plays, and I'll make an effort to seek them out since I love long, slow, ponderous theatrical productions where very little happens but you leave with a lot to chew on.

I love movies like that, too, so I'm surprised I didn't respond more with Janet Planet. I've certainly known many women like Janet in my time, and the setting and mielue are quite familiar to me. The film perfectly captures the North Hampton vibe, and Nicholson's performance is captivating. The story unfolds from the point of view of the 11-year-old child, who is the picture's quirkiest character. This perspective is part of what makes Janet so intriguing, as we never get to understand more about her than what her daughter perceives and what we can infer from that. But there is something about this POV that keeps the viewer at such a distance that it's difficult to fully enter the world the movie creates.