Film review: Janet Planet is an offbeat account of an idiosyncratic mother-daughter relationship

Julianne Nicholson stars as Janet and her 11-year-old daughter Lacy is played by Zoe Ziegler. Picture: A24.

• Janet Planet 
• ★★★★☆ 
• Cinematic release

Set in rural Massachusetts in 1991, Janet Planet  (12A) stars Julianne Nicholson as Janet, a quasi-hippy acupuncturist rearing her 11-year-old daughter Lacy (a brilliant turn from Zoe Ziegler) with mixed success.

An almost comically serious child (“every moment of my life is hell,” she solemnly informs her mother), Lacy is friendless, deeply introspective, and possessed of a vivid imagination — and the more she plays with her homemade theatre and rearranges its carefully choreographed figurines, the more we realise that Lacy is engaged in a hopeless attempt to exert some kind of control over her life.

Written and directed by the Pulitzer-winning playwright Annie Baker, Janet Planet  is an offbeat account of an idiosyncratic mother-daughter relationship that largely proceeds by way of Lacy’s child’s-eye view of her mother’s boyfriends (Will Patton, Elias Koteas) as Janet reconnects with an old friend, the idealistic feminist Regina (Sophie Okonedo).

Unfolding slowly by way of impressionistic scenes that luxuriate in the storytelling principle of ‘show, don’t tell’, it’s an absorbing tale of the complexities of love — there’s no doubt that Janet adores her daughter, even as it’s made clear that the child’s perceived limitations create friction for a mother who can’t afford to allow Lacy repeat Janet’s own mistakes.