JANET PLANET (12A)
Director: Annie Baker
Runtime: 1hr 53 min
Cast: Julianne Nicholson, Zoe Ziegler, Will Patton, Sophie Okonedo, Elias Koteas
Synopsis: 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 and her spellbinding nature. In her solitary moments, Lacy inhabits an inner world so extraordinarily detailed that it begins to seep into the outside world. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker captures a child’s experience of time passing, and the ineffability of a daughter falling out of love with her mother, in this singularly sublime film debut.
URL:https://youtu.be/_aBF_v0gvpQ?si=3yAqj7itXt9OOMCJk
Pulitzer-winning US playwright Annie Baker’s film debut is a tender, perceptive mother-daughter drama with Julianne Nicholson and a dream team in the richly cinematic film.
Janet (Julianne Nicholson) is the whole world for her only child, 11-year-old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler). Bespectacled, gauche and still partially unformed as a human, Lacy is fascinated by her casually magnetic mother, examining her hungrily and attempting to read her as if she’s a map to navigate the mysteries of the adult world. It’s an intense relationship, poised on the brink of change, with Lacy’s adolescence lurking just around the corner.
Annie Baker says it is: “a story about falling out of love with your mother.”
Janet Planet goes where stories about the daughters of single mothers haven’t
gone before and it is also a story about a girl becoming enthralled with the strange power of her own imagination.
charged reality and delicately spun fable.
Set in the summer of 1991 and 11-year-old Lacy couldn’t countenance
camp, so she’s back home, in her mother Janet’s flawed
but alluring universe, observing Janet’s myriad complicated
relationships. Lacy’s life consists of conjured fantasies, stretched open
time, an ineffable connection to the natural world and, most of all, the absolute ecstasy of receiving Janet’s sole attention.
When three intruding adults—troubled Wayne (Will Patton), exuberant
Regina (Sophie Okonedo), and intense Avi (Elias Koteas)—come to visit Janet over the summer, Lacy’s private world and bond with her mother start to wobble.
The colourful camerawork and excellent sound design recreate the atmosphere of hazy, late summer days, excellent ensemble work from the cast with Julianne Nicholson and newcomer Zoe Ziegler as a dream team in this richly cinematic film debut.
Images courtesy of : A24
