Janet Planet

“You know what’s funny? Every single moment of my life is hell.” So says Lacy (Zoe Zigler), 11-years-old and learning fast. Her mom (Julianne Nicholson) demurs. But she also gets it. Life isn’t always a bowl of cherries. Over the course of several months Lacy and Janet do what mothers and daughters do, interrupted from time to time by friends and admirers, a few of whom meet Lacy’s standards, but most of whom do not.

For her first film as writer-director, Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Annie Baker captures a pivotal moment—or rather, a series of simple moments, which singly mean little yet add up to something much more—in the relationship of a young girl and the woman who is her everything.

The genius of Janet Planet, Baker’s debut as a feature writer-director, is how flawlessly it renders what it’s like to spend the summer being 11 at your home in the woods, when your mother is your whole world and you wish you could just have her to yourself […] Janet Planet is a tiny masterpiece, and it’s so carefully constructed, so loaded with details and emotions and gentle comedy, that it’s impossible to shake once it gets under your skin.

Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times

Here’s some quietly ferocious, fiercely expressive dialogue in the playwright Annie Baker’s first feature, “Janet Planet,” and several moments of imaginative sublimity. The movie is a passionate and finely nuanced view of the tense and powerful bond between a mother and a daughter who are living together in relative isolation.

Richard Brody, New Yorker

This is not just one of the great films of its year, but one of the finest first films in the annals of the medium.

Charles Bramesco, Little White Lies

Janet Planet is a phenomenal debut by Annie Baker, a MacArthur genius grant-winning playwright who has notched so many theater prizes that she may have grabbed a camera just for the challenge.

Amy Nicholson, Washington Post