The Reel Review
A precocious pre-teen and her single mother navigate relationships with others – and one another – in 1991 rural Massachusetts. Newcomer Zoe Ziegler and Julianne Nicholson (Mare of Easttown) star in this coming-of-age drama that explores the relationships between single moms and their children.
Annie Baker’s feature film debut is more a self-indulgent character study of two codependent individuals than it is a plot driven film meant to entertain. Young Lacy is obsessed with her mother Janet, an acupuncturist who is juggling her career, motherhood and her own personal life. Lacy still shares a bed with her mom at the age of 11 and serves as her mom’s best friend and confidante, as Janet, the center of Lacy’s universe, drifts through a string of brief relationships in her quest for romance and friendship. The two are so intertwined that there really is no room for anyone else, yet Lacy wonders aloud why she has no friends her own age.
Despite committed performances from its leads and a supporting cast that includes Will Patton, Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda, Death on the Nile) and Elias Koteas (The Last Days on Mars, The Fourth Kind) as some of the adults briefly in their lives, Planet Janet suffers from a tediously slow story that frankly is a slog to get through. There are lots of lingering, drawn out shots – apparently to illustrate the monotony of their lives, lulling the viewer to sleep by the time it reaches its frustrating and pointless non-ending.
REEL FACTS
• Annie Baker and Julianne Nicholson were both raised in Western Massachusetts.
• Planet Janet is Zoe Ziegler’s film debut.
• Planet Janet writer/director Annie Baker won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her play The Flick.
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