Janet Planet

Annie Baker's debut film is an incredibly observant drama about the relationship between a young girl and her mom, simultaneously comforting and discordant.

“Janet Planet” is a hard movie to describe, and probably to appreciate for some people. It falls into that rare box of films where the tone is somehow simultaneously comforting and discordant.

Written and directed by Annie Baker, a noted playwright making her first feature film, it’s an incredibly observant piece of filmmaking that is less about the big events in life and more the seemingly trivial in-between stuff that is critical to us building and maintaining our self-identities.

It’s a coming-of-age story about an awkward 11-year-old girl and her relationship with her mom, living in rural western Massachusetts in the early 1990s. Lacy (Zoe Ziegler, in her very first screen credit) is smart but has a hard time relating to others, other than her mom, Janet, played by Julianne Nicholson.

The movie is set over one summer as Lacy and Janet knock about their ramshackle home in the woods. A handful of other figures waltz in and out of their lives, but we understand instinctively these are but waypoints in their journey together.

Lacy was supposed to go to summer camp but phones her mom soon after arrival demanding to come home, using some extreme language and threats. Janet runs an acupuncture business out of the ground floor, and it seems to pay the bills without keeping her very busy.

“Every moment of my life is a living hell,” Lacy complains to her mom, understanding how carefully calculated that statement is in eliciting the response she wants. Janet isn’t a pushover, but treats Lacy more as a friend than a kid, offering suggestions rather than orders, even as to whether to take her medicine or not.

The screenplay is demarcated into segments based on the current “other” figure in their lives. As the story opens, Janet’s boyfriend Wayne is living with her. Played by Will Patton, he’s a deeply weird guy, almost completely uncommunicative, prone to migraines. He has a somewhat estranged daughter, Sequoia (Edie Moon Kearns), and Lacy is as surprised as anyone to get along well with her.

But Wayne’s time in the story soon comes to an end, as each section quite literally announces, “End Wayne,” filling in new names as we go.

Regina, an old friend of Janet, comes to stay with them for a while while down on her luck. Played by Sophie Okonedo, she’s been living in a hippie-dippy commune where they do bizarre but oddly affecting performances combining musical tones and theatrics, which they refer to as services. Regina has been dating the leader, Avi (Elias Koteas), and openly discuss whether this troupe qualifies as a cult.

Later Avi himself will turn up at their door, seemingly very gentle and kind, and gives a long soliloquy where he posits that Lacy herself is as responsible for the creation of the universe as God. He gives them a tour of his backstage, a true menagerie of the grotesque, hand-made costumes and masks that are beautiful and horrifying.

Lacy has her own strange rituals, carefully adding to and curating a diorama in her room, changing the scenes to more or less reflect her current emotional state. She seems like an unhappy kid at times, declaring her independence of her mom’s light parenting, but still clings to her in babyish ways, like insisting they sleep together.

The focus is on Lacy, and Ziegler is just magnificent in this role, grounded and invested, and we feel like Lacy is not some creation made for this movie but someone who has always existed and we’re just now stumbling across her. Nicholson gets little moments and filigrees to investigate what makes Janet tick, such as her self-acknowledged ability to lure any man she wants to, but always the wrong one.

Some may question what a movie like this is “about.” I’m not really sure what to answer, other than it is about itself. My guess is it’s at least semi-autobiographical about Baker the filmmaker, perhaps a paean to her own mother but not an overly sentimentalized one. It’s a portrait of a bond that is strong but full of fractures. We can see Lacy turning into a very disturbed young woman, or a very centered and inquisitive one, with the scale having equal chances of tipping either way.

Mother and daughter have created their own little ecosystem, and “Janet Planet” is simply our opportunity to have a peek inside this everyday, mesmerizing world.