In one of the funniest, most heartwarming scenes in Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker’s debut film, Janet Planet, 11-year-old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) asks her mom Janet (Julianne Nicholson) if she would be disappointed if she dates a girl one day. Lying in bed side-by-side, starting to doze off to sleep, Janet says of course not. Then after several beats of silence, she becomes alert as she frankly states, “I always wondered if you would grow up to be a lesbian.” Janet explains that she doesn’t understand how someone as headstrong as Lacy could ever be with a man; and astutely, Lacy points out that she’s only ever seen Janet date men.
Written and directed by Baker after helming over a decade of acclaimed plays (Circle Mirror Transformation, The Frick, Nocturna) and released by A24, Janet Planet is a humble comfort movie that makes humble emotions feel massive—and one of the best dramas of the year. Set in 1991 in western Massachusetts, the film (out now in theaters nationwide) follows Lacy’s lackadaisical summer and her attentiveness to how her bohemian mother moves through the world and the many people, from s---y boyfriends to old friends, who come in and out of it. But most importantly, it’s a tender meditation on mother-daughter relationships; specifically, the way our mothers see us and we see them unlike anybody else.
