Janet Planet (Annie Baker, 2024)

[Black Hat]

I saw some people say they were completely bowled over by Janet Planet and compare it to Mike Mills - I'm really excited for it myself. (Plus it's already about being a kid in MA in 1991, so it may appeal to you particularly!)

and I have the misfortune of knowing people who were "bowled over" by Janet Planet. One of the worst, most insufferable and annoying films I've ever seen.

[Fiery Angel]

I saw some people say they were completely bowled over by Janet Planet

and I have the misfortune of knowing people who were "bowled over" by Janet Planet. One of the worst, most insufferable and annoying films I've ever seen.

not surprised, considering the writer-director's plays are also insufferable and annoying

[therewillbeblus]

I just want Julianne Nicholson to have the coveted star status she deserves, so I hope this kills with audiences

[therewillbeblus]

I saw some people say they were completely bowled over by Janet Planet

and I have the misfortune of knowing people who were "bowled over" by Janet Planet. One of the worst, most insufferable and annoying films I've ever seen.

not surprised, considering the writer-director's plays are also insufferable and annoying

I just saw this and liked it okay, but if anything a lot of elements typically yielding "insufferable and annoying" qualities were appropriately understated. I particularly loved two bits of nonchalant magical realism calling back to an earlier conversation, with both indicating a kind of liberation that -at least in the denouement's second helping- was left somewhat elliptical. There's some deliberate, unambiguous meaning to take away, but conversations afterwards revealed many valid interpretations concerning sexuality, attachment, parentification, and stages of self-actualization, and I think the key is in viewing the film as about the road to arriving at a planet beyond the title's; ascending it, for both characters (getting outside of yourself or more into it) - though it's much more interested in the daughter's observations than the mother's truth.

I also loved the sly running joke of getting a few great male character actors to play throwaway roles, because they just don't matter in this story except for as dressing - marked by their respective hilarious exits

[Fiery Angel]

I just want Julianne Nicholson to have the coveted star status she deserves, so I hope this kills with audiences

I'm a huge Julianne Nicholson fan so I will definitely see this despite my misgivings about the writer-director

[Red Screamer]

Janet Planet (Annie Baker, 2024) was really enjoyable and moving for me, a contemplative childhood movie almost entirely free of nostalgia and generic expectations. With Baker coming from theater, I was wondering how she would acquit herself as a film director, and overall I found her approach both coherent and distinct. Her style has a gently hallucinatory quality—sometimes reminding me of Tsai without either the dead spaces or the fireworks—especially when she has fun with cinematic effects like people entering the frame unexpectedly or a shot starting while a movement is already in progress. I appreciate any director who can give me a jolt with nothing but a camera movement, a crosscut, or a change of lens length, and I think those of you who've seen the film will know exactly which moments I'm talking about.

On the more obvious end, she also uses the very edges of frames more frequently than any sensible person would. Unlike other directors who compose that way (Yoshida, Godard) her images don't tend to be flat and geometrical, and the effect winds up being more spatial than graphic. I was a little shocked that she pulled this choice off as well as she did, and for those who aren't paying close attention, it might be one sign that her directorial choices are going to be very deliberate. Her compositions throughout are nice: unexpected, unfussy, nicely balanced in the 1.66. More subtly, she plays with objective/subjective shots to great effect. Even when she did so in the way I expected, she went further in that direction and surprised me, like with the “child’s point-of-view” shot we get towards the beginning in a car, with the adults in the front seats shot from a low, subjective vantage point from the backseat. In Baker’s version of this trope, the angles are more partial than usual, and the shots closer-up, to the point of abstraction. The emphasis is not on a facial expression or a power dynamic but on the texture of these faces and their huge, imposing mysteries. Hence the title. I'll say more on that later.

Less surprisingly, her work with actors is great and maybe the most distinctive thing here. The whole ensemble works wonders with her dialogue’s stylized-naturalism, which is like a very slightly alternate universe where people don’t stammer or use filler words and every sentence comes out of their mouths like they’ve never heard it said before. Their line readings are consistently surprising, with thier twists on the dialogue bringing out the tenderness and vulnerability in their characters, even at times when they should seem unpleasant or comical. Maybe that's the sort of thing that made people elsewhere call this cloying, but I found it refreshing, managing to be both distanced and disarmingly frank at the same time.

In general, this is a very tender, intimate film; tender like a bruise, and intimate in a way where the leads spend maybe a quarter of its runtime whispering together in bed. And this is where the thematic thrust comes in, which has been paired perfectly with Baker’s style. It's a childhood movie, but it's not about coming of age or personal development or Freudian foundational events. It's a childhood movie because it's about a character who observes everything very closely but doesn't know what to make of any of it. The behavior of people makes fresh, deep impressions on her, but the film's perspective on them is left considerably open-ended. Are they sweet, are they satirical, are they disturbing...? The main question is about the nature of the mother-daughter relationship. Is it a relationship of uncommon equality and closeness, something like an unconventional friendship between them that knocks down boundaries and makes difficult things newly possible? Or is it a toxic, obsessive relationship, with each of them simultaneously clinging onto each other and towering over each other, as new age philosophy encourages the mother’s childish instincts while forcing the daughter to grow up too quickly? It's both and it's neither. Which is not non-commital on Baker's part but a result of accuracy, care, and meditation. I hope Annie Baker keeps making movies.