Planet Janet is about shared generational trauma. The connection between mothers and daughters can be so intrinsic, so emotionally tied to the sacred security of the power dynamic, that often one’s trauma can become the other’s, as though a spiritual navel string still tethers the mother and daughter together. When new people enter a parent’s life, it has so much potential for disruption, if not done with care and intention, and can radically alter the family dynamics, if they are not cared for and nurtured.

This is the devastating heart at the center of Janet Planet, a beautiful and quiet film centered around a young girl’s summer spent at home, isolated in bucolic Massachusetts, lingering and clinging on to her mother, who entertains the company of a trio of visitors over the course of the season. This is hard news for young Lacy (played with superlative, expressive quietude by Zoe Ziegler), who just wants to hold on. Her coming-of-age only comes once and here it is spent with her eccentric hippie mother Janet (Julianne Nicholson, brilliantly zoned out and detached), who just won’t give her what she needs.

It’s hard when parents are not who we need them to be. When they have needs that seemingly usurp our own as individuals, what is the messaging behind that action? It’s a devastating course of events for young Lacy and lost time for Janet, who continues to choose other people over the affections of her daughter.

Celebrated playwright Annie Baker also seems primed to become a celebrated filmmaker. Her eye for human elements is immaculate and seems to come from the heart. Her compassion for her characters is big — she never fails to allow both characters to have their own internal lives, no matter what is going on with them externally. And the sensibilities for structure as a playwright pay dividends as the film is divided into three acts, surrounding the arrival of three strangers who enter Janet and Lacy’s lives.

The cohesive construction of the film feels tightly wound, the lives of the characters playing out within a narrow diorama. This specific and zeroed in sense for story conveys so much — the way Janet and Lacy are positioned and interact tells whole short stories — through body language and superb acting, we can fill in what the rest of their lives must be like outside this summer together. Janet Planet is small-scale but in that focused smallness is its power, as a crucial mother-daughter story worthy of an audience. This is a charged observational character study where the multitude of feelings are deeply rooted in the film’s uncompromising vérité presentation.

9/10