As mainstream films go, there’s always a propensity for narrational extremes, considering themselves as beacons of escapism from the doldrums of our ordinary life. But ordinary life can be is just as captivating with all its transient intricacies, felt keenly by and more adjacent to the lives of the audiences watching. The onus appears to lie in the hands of arthouse cinema, with movies such as Janet Planet, which inventively portrays the beauty and poignancy of the everyday.
A stripped-down rustic hued ambience is paired with a minimalist, languid narrative which muses over a cosy mother-daughter relationship during a summer in a semi-rural, liberal community in Massachusetts. Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) is an offbeat, prickly pre-teen child; Janet (Julianne Nicholson) is her single, lost and incredibly accommodating mother. Initial scenes see Lacy wanting to leave camp early to spend the summer at home and like a doting parent, Janet obliges. But it becomes frustrating for Lacy, as she will not have Janet all to herself. Janet’s people pleasing tendencies sees herself entangled in other people’s plans, as three visiting adult figures drift in and out of their home at successive intervals throughout the summer.
First is Janet’s love interest, the affable, worn-in, Vietnam veteran Wayne (Will Patton), also a single dad, to whom Lucy remains ambivalent. As casually and unremarkably as Wayne enters the fray, he similarly disappears to give way for the Regina (Sophie Okenedo), an old friend who has escaped the claws of her a hippy-commune-come-puppet-theatre collective. Bringing her kooky, British, actorly vibes and yet for all her colourful persona still Lacy remains ambivalent. A comedic moment sees Regina and Janet take ecstasy as a bonding exercise, but instead end up irritating each other with their candid critique; all this takes place unfiltered, right before Lacy’s eyes. As Regina decides to rejoin her troupe, Janet meets their commune leader Avi played by Elia Koteas, a mild-mannered man with a hint of menace. A potential love interest, but a slight surprise in the film’s denouement makes us question whether he’s a figment of Janet’s longing.
Nicholson illuminates each scene with her mere presence. It is captivating to look as she masterfully conveys the bewilderment that engulfs Janet’s life. Our protagonist isfinally arriving at a moment of self-reflection, it seems. Playing her with equal measure of aloofness and vulnerability, she is someone who has made something of her life; running her acupuncturist practice, raising a daughter but is still crippled by nagging behavioural patterns of the past. Ziegler impresses with such naturalness and unaffectedness, signalling to a maturity way beyond her years. Janet doesn’t shelter Lacy from the truths of life; apart from permanently surrounding her with grow-ups (she also appears to have difficulty in connecting with children er own age) and it’s also the way she interacts with her. We are privy to open conversations about her mother’s relationship with men and Lacy’s sexuality. It’s very much indicative of the liberal bubble they exist in, however it does offer food for thought of where do the boundaries between appropriateness and overprotectiveness lie when raising children.
Writer-director Annie Baker from the onset of her career, has been described as someone who “creates normal individuals coping with everyday issues in their small-town lives”. The quote was in reference to Baker’s theatre work (the world in which she predominantly inhabits) and it’s a description that almost encapsulates the essence of Janet Planet, her debut feature. Upon closer inspection where things occur in Baker’s stories is in the unsaid, the insinuated, in the multitude of minutest details that percolate every single frame. Indeed, if we pause Janet Planet at any given moment, we will witness a carefully constructed image, a polysemantic mise-en-scene of acute cinematographic ingenuity (signed by DoP Maria von Hausswolff) and astute psychological observation.
It would be hard to pin down Janet Planet as a coming-of-age story as it isn’t solely preoccupied with Lacy but also because nothing really has changes. Lacy and Janet would likely look back at this summer as fairly low-key and unremarkable but inevitably the passage of time and experiences gained has changed them. There are subtle clues that by the time Lacy goes back to school, the enamoured image she held of her mum has dimmed somewhat or rather it has adjusted into a more realistic perspective.
Janet Planet is in cinemas on Friday, July 19th.
