Janet Planet (2024)

There’s a difference between minimalist and vacuous, and writer-director Annie Baker doesn’t seem to know the difference. The playwright’s debut feature, to put it simply, is boring, pretentious, meandering, unfocused and a big, fat waste of time. It’s so dull, in fact, that the film makes the works of Kelly Reichardt appear utterly fascinating. Set in 1991 in the hippie-dominated arts community of rural western Massachusetts, the film follows the story (if one could even call it that) of middle-aged acupuncturist Janet (Julianne Nicholson) as she struggles to sort out what appears to have been a wayward, meandering life. And, as this tale plays out, it faithfully sticks to that course, too, an influence that’s clearly wearing off on Janet’s equally clueless, incessantly brooding, 8-year-old daughter, Lacy (newcomer Zoe Ziegler). Along the way, the duo experiences an array of cryptic, inconsequential involvements with others who are apparently fascinated with Janet (though goodness knows why), all of whom (Will Patton, Sophie Okonedo, Elias Koteas) are just as lost and boring as Janet is. So what’s the point in all this? Who knows – and, not long into the picture, who cares? The raves that have been showered on this tedious, tiresome piece of filmmaking are a complete mystery to me, given its prevailing mundane nature and monotone performances by players who all sound like they’ve been shot up with sodium pentothal. Nicholson, in particular, comes across as so disengaged that she probably could have just as easily phoned in this performance (despite claims that this is the breakthrough role that she’s supposedly been waiting for – please, watch her in “August: Osage County” (2013) instead). What’s more, this picture probably has some of the worst sound quality I’ve ever seen in a contemporary production – so bad that I had to struggle to be able to hear what was being said (and I was sitting in the theater’s second row). And the film’s feeble attempts at trying to incorporate some kind of subtle, nuanced metaphysical undercurrent fail miserably as well, treated almost as if their inclusion was an afterthought. If you dare to consider giving this one a look, make sure you don’t watch it when you’re tired – you just might fall asleep soon after the opening credits roll, an understandable reaction, to be sure.

A story about a mom and daughter in an awkwardly semi-erotic relationship.

The mom starts a relationship with a mentally ill and mentally disabled white man with a speech impediment. We never get to know why or how she hooked up with him. We know she peddles woo for a living, so she hasn't met him in some kind of caretaker/patient relationship. Perhaps it's a fetish. Perhaps it was all she could get.

Well, they mow their lawn and sit around trying to say as little as possible, helped by the guy's aforementioned speech impediment. Sometimes the girl plays her Casio.

They meet up with the guy's daughter from another unexplained relationship after first standing a minute by their car, then two minutes staring in silence about thirty feet away from the daughter. The two girls play.

Then the ill guy gets a headache, and the mom breaks up with him. The mom and daughter then go to some kind of religious communist hippie seance thing for about half an hour, where they first appropriate what looks like maybe Indian culture, then talk about how the culture of others is evil and nihilistic and how they're better than everyone else.

The mom then starts a lesbian relationship with a black woman, who's also into woo. The black lesbian lets us know that the mom is a fantastic woman, which is really helpful, because she's only been shown so far as a somewhat unstable questionable mom with terrible judgment.

The black lesbian, thankfully, is pretty cool and has her shit together. She can also speak, a trait she uses on the daughter, who by the way talks like a thirty-year-old most of the time. Maybe the mom goes on Tinder for her lesbian hookups instead of driving around homeless areas when looking for a straight hookup.

Then they take a bath, watch some TV, talk about themselves, and delve into teenage Weltschmertz-level pocket philosophy for about half an hour. In the end, the black lesbian agrees with the mom in the wrong way, and the mom goes into a mentally abusive tirade, possibly due to some kind of psychosis.

Then the daughter eats an ice cream for about five minutes. When she comes home, one of the weirdos from the hippie commune is there and asks awkward questions for awhile. The daughter then sits on the couch for about five minutes looking at a doll, then plays piano for another five minutes, and finally looks at weirdo guy talking to black lesbian girl without sound for a long time. Weirdo guy abduct lesbian black woman in his beetle bus.

At night, when mom and daughter are doing whatever it is they're up to in bed, the daughter reveals that she's a lesbian. Mom says she kinda suspected it, because the way she is as a person probably wouldn't work with a man, so it'd be easier to just be lesbian. Which of course is incredibly insensitive and disrespectful, but the daughter seems fine with it. The mom then disregards the subject and starts talking about herself, and how she's so amazing that she could make any man in the world fall in love with her. Maybe this narcissism is a biproduct of her mental health problems, but we can only guess. Her tremendously inappropriate oversharing lasts for about five minutes, and then thankfully the scene is over.

In act three, creepy weirdo guy returns and shares his cringe misconceptions about cosmology and the big bang, mixed in a blender with Buddhist misunderstandings.

Then the daughter and mom go for a walk and the mom shares thoughts on how she doesn't understand how other people work, in particular men. It escalates into a sort of religiously induced mental breakdown that for some reason doesn't freak out the daughter. Perhaps she's seen this sort of thing much too often and has learned over the years to disassociate and compartmentalize.

The daughter then gets a headache and lies around for about twelve hundred hours. The mom now wants creepy weirdo Deepak Chopra cosmology guy's penis for some reason, and as is her apparent habit, she makes the daughter make the decision for her if it's okay to hook up with him. Just as she habitually makes it the daughter's decision when she breaks up with someone. Guess she doesn't want to carry the burden herself of her poor decisions. Much better to let her nine-year-old daughter deal with that guilt.

The mom and Deepak Chopra now go for a walk for six years, two of which are spent by Deepak as he reads from a book under a tree. Mom "spaced out in the middle," as she puts it, and asks him to read it again. Which. He. Does. Literally. For two more years.

Mr. Chopra then vanishes into thin air, and mom spends about a millennium sitting under a tree confused, then driving home while eating chicken in the beetle bang bus.

The last ten minutes are spent watching people dance, and the daughter very very slowly cracking from the pressure of the mental abuse she's suffered at the hand of her mom.

The end.

Oh, and it's an A24 production, so audio is mono and it's filmed in AnusVision, left to fade in the sun, the blacks crushed, the brights crushed, the brightness turned down to 20% so you can't see what's going on, contrast to 10% so it's as dull as the colors are faded, the black level then lifted to 5% so dark scenes are gray scenes, then dragged through a latrine for grittiness and developed and scanned by a blind drunkard.

I really like many A24 films. But this narcissistic, pretentious, navel-gazing, frankly unintelligent, woke, forced, pathetically and clumsily scaffolded, boring and predictable garbage is NOT it. Damn, what a chore to get through. Not a single likeable character. The daughter comes close, but is so poorly written by someone who forgot what it's like to be a child, and doesn't have one of their own, nor knows anyone who does, that she's just completely unbelievable. A very small number of the ridiculously long and dwelling shots actually work, and the acting by the mom is passable, so it's a very low two-star rating.

Writer / director Annie Baker‘s slow burn indie film “Janet Planet” is one that takes its time, and whether that works for you really depends on your mood. This super quiet, artsy, coming-of-age movie tells the story of 11-year-old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) and her free-spirited mom, Janet (Julianne Nicholson), who live in rural Massachusetts in the early ‘90s. The movie is about their highly relatable, complex relationship as Lacy grows up and starts pulling away from her mom. This is an experiential type of film that’s more about the vibe and the little moments than a straightforward plot.

What I really liked about this movie is how it feels like you’re just sitting with the characters in their quiet little world. Sounds of nature make up the majority of the soundtrack, which makes you focus on what’s going on between between Lacy and Janet (and their changing dynamic). With its deliberate, ambling pacing, the film can feel pretty slow at times. You really need to be in the right mindset to enjoy its quirks.

Ziegler’s performance as Lacy is a big highlight. She’s an odd, tough little girl who’s figuring out life in her own weird way. Her character is weirdly mature and often has deep conversations with adults as she quietly manipulates the people around her. It’s a complex role, and Ziegler is impressive in it. Nicholson is also perfectly cast as Janet, a mom who’s more of a friend than a parent. These two actors work well together, adding deeper layers to the complicated relationship that divides their characters.

“Janet Planet” is an offbeat story about trying your best to fit in with the world, especially when everyone else sees you as a stranger on the outside looking in. The film is slow and introspective, but it beautifully captures a deep dive into human dynamics and the very real pains of growing up.

By: Louisa Moore / SCREEN ZEALOTS