Janet Planet (2023)

In rural Western Massachusetts, 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home, enthralled by her own imagination and the attention of her mother, Janet. As the months pass, three visitors enter their orbit, all captivated by Janet (says IMDb). This brings new meaning to the phrase slow burner. It really is almost stationary.

Annie Baker (who has made the leap for the first time from theatre, plays and writing to directing) lingers long on people, places, scenes and poignant silences. It feels very arthouse in many ways - a close-up and personal character study which viewers can - and will - take away different stuff.

I really like Julianne Nicholson, and have done since her cutesy appearance back in Ally McBeal, who takes the lead here with daughter Lacy, played beautifully by Zoe Ziegler. She's far from cutesy these days and especially here, but is a terrific actress portraying the hippy-mum with a liberated past, floating in and out of relationships.

There are three characters who float in and out of Janet and Lacy's lives during the course of our story, presented as chapters, and demonstrate quite clearly the difficulties Janet has holding on to anything and showing why it is that Lacy has ended up reclusive with no friends, an unconfident bag of nerves.

Will Patton plays the first floater, at the outset as Janet's partner Wayne, Sophie Okonedo as Regina, a long-lost friend from the past and Elias Koteas as Avi, the philosophising guru in charge of the hippy-cult (or perhaps not a cult!) and theatrical troupe. They all three play their parts well, in keeping with what Baker demands of them. It's shot beautifully with lasting visuals as she's not afraid to wait. And wait. At one point, we watch some food being microwaved. For half a minute. In real time. Try and work out what that's about, apart from reflecting the pacing of the general delivery of the film/story.

Some of the time, we wonder what's actually happening and what's conjured up in the minds of Janet and Lacy, especially towards the end, but that takes nothing from the intended engagement for the audience.

It's quite hard to review this film really as everyone will view it differently and develop their own interpretation but in order to get to that point, people will have to be patient as yes, the near-2 hours often feels like it's dragging and well, nothing much is happening. You really have to look past that and try to digest something different. Or not bother! Various streaming services have it bouncing around if you fancy a bit of naval-gazing with the two leads!