For most kids, ages 11-14 just suck already even in a standard home. What if you’re 11, in a hippie existence, with a mom who serial dates several people? Janet Planet gives us a specific character study that nicely doubles as a general one, though it could afford to not be as idle as it is while getting its point across. I saw more than a few phones get pulled out during this one, and I wasn’t even mad, because I may or may not have done the same. Sorry AMC.
After a misread of the girls at camp, 11 year old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) finds a way to leave early, getting picked up by her mom Janet (Julianne Nicholson) and her current boyfriend Wayne (Will Patton). The rest of the summer is spent in Janet and Lacy’s home, as the mom/daughter get to know Wayne, and encounter various of mom’s other acquaintances like theater performer Regina (Sophie Okonedo) and troupe leader Avi (Elias Koteas) while taking piano lessons and going on adventures along the way in rural hippie Massachusetts.
I like what Annie Baker is attempting here with Janet Planet. She’s giving us a new type of tween with Zoe Ziegler: the melancholy teen. Zoe isn’t drastically suicidal. Nor is she the queen of camp. Or even your run of the mill charming movie presence. She’s a quiet awkward kid who can’t really connect with anyone besides her mom. The mixture of loneliness and new people in her mom’s life she doesn’t like gives Lucy a day to day sadness that’s annoying, but not incurable. It’s just a crappy temporary situation she’s got to navigate out of. At times this can feel wise beyond her years, but mostly you can feel this is a part of Lucy’s summers: just a slog with nothing to do except practice piano (I didn’t need to feel the endless slog as much as the movie made me though). Those feelings manifest with owl like eye piercing of others that are not Janet, and purposeful abrasive passive aggressive behavior, openly calling out the other adults and challenging them with her beliefs with one line then going vague and quiet again. I’ve met more than my share of Lucy’s in my life, making days just a little more intolerable than normal, upping the stress level just a little bit to where people might blow up if they’re already having bad days. It’s a great, mostly wordless performance from Zoe Ziegler, capturing a character that usually is a wallflower in the movies and never takes center stage.
But the movie is called Janet Planet for a reason. Julianne Nicholson gets a real showcase after a solid character actor career, and nails Janet. Nicholson mines the emotional complexity of being a single mom. She’s got her maternal duties, but also still wants a life of her own, in this case with various acquaintances she makes through the summer. We see both sides of this personality through her relationships with others, and how those relationships evolve and naturally come to an end over time. Not in a firey way, but in a more “time has run its course” way, hurting but growing Janet as time goes on. Like Lucy, Janet is a tad lonely, sad, and restless, but also is working to make those feelings more temporary with more agency than her daughter. It’s a subtle, excellent performance, and a wonderful love letter to the single moms out there trying to figure it out and do it all at the same time.
Janet Planet is best probably watched doing something else at home. The kids will get bored and get on their phones, but the mom’s folding laundry might glance up a moment or two, recognizing something real and honest the movie is doing, especially if everyone’s in a bit of a sadness rut at the moment. Though I snapped out of mine the minute I heard the Clarissa Explains It All Music, a smile snapping tune if I’ve ever heard one.