Time tends to move very quickly. Every one of us has had that moment where we suddenly realize just how much time has elapsed, which is both terrifying and beautiful in its way. Annie Baker has a fascination with time and the impact it has on people, as evident through her work as a playwright, her beautiful dramatic compositions being delicate examinations of individuals as they navigate various challenges, usually being set in remote corners of the United States that seem to be entirely untouched by previous artistic voices. She carries this same sensibility over into Janet Planet, her directorial debut and a film that touches on some truly striking subject matter that contains many of her most notable artistic nuances. The film follows Lacy, a quiet but steadfast young girl standing on the precipice of adolescence, and her mother Janet, a free-spirited hippie who adores her daughter but is not always the positive role model she needs during these formative years. Baker constructs a wonderful mother-daughter odyssey that follows Janet and Lacy throughout what appears to be a single summer, telling the story of their relationship through the lens of visitors that weave in and out of their lives over time, including romantic partners and friends that may not exist in their space for a short while, but leave quite a lasting impression on both Lacy and Janet as they forge their path forward, in the hopes of escaping their pleasant but banal existence in a tucked-away corner of Massachusetts, the setting for their many fascinating experiences and adventures that form the fabric of the young Lacy’s earliest encounters with the world that surrounds her. Poetic and compelling, Baker’s work in Janet Planet is a bold exclamation to her insightful understanding of humanity and its most intricate, detailed elements. Captivating and bold, while also harrowing in its honesty and sometimes intentionally uncomfortable, the film confronts reality in a way that is earnest and direct, while still having the ability to challenge us to look beneath the surface and find the enchanting details that punctuate this heartbreakingly beautiful examination of a deeply imperfect but profoundly loving relationship between a mother and daughter simply doing their best to navigate a hostile and confusing world.

Child protagonists are a narrative tool that has been wonderfully implemented over time – there’s something truly compelling about a story that provides a glimpse into the world through the eyes of a younger protagonist, especially since these stories tend to have a candour and innocence that usually allows for more complex ideas to be investigated in more detail without becoming overwhelming. Janet Planet is essentially the story of motherhood as seen from the perspective of a child, who silently observes the world around her, all of which orbits around her mother, with whom she has a strong but contentious relationship. Baker has touched on coming-of-age narratives in her stage plays, so it makes sense that her first film would feature this quite substantially. The entire narrative follows Lacy as she meanders through her small hometown – there isn’t much rhyme or reason to explain the choices of scenarios into which Baker places her protagonist, other than attempting to be a broad depiction of her childhood. Baker cobbles together many moments, some of which contribute to the narrative while others are purely arbitrary, as she weaves a tapestry of this protagonist’s day-to-day life, particularly in her ever-changing, deeply complicated relationship with her mother, who is the source of both her adoration and confusion as she tries to make sense of the world through being parented by someone who seems to be still in the process of coming to terms with reality herself. Coming-of-age stories focused around inverted dynamics, particularly as those where a child is shown to be the more level-headed and logical of the pair, are not uncommon, but they’re difficult to get right without feeling trivial and twee. Baker is an empathetic, soulful storyteller who infuses every word with meaning, so there wasn’t any fear that Janet Planet would be some idiosyncratic jumble of an off-the-rails mother being parented by her precocious, pre-teen daughter, but rather a far more complex, deeply moving character study that eventually proves to be the story of growth, shown from the perspective of two women, both of whom undergo enormous changes, both emotional and psychological, throughout the film.

There is something truly bewitching about Janet Planet ­– the plot is extremely simple, and Baker resists any temptation to resort to the obvious techniques that would accompany such a story. The result is a film that is difficult to describe or even compare to anything we have seen before, both tonally and visually. The most appropriate description would probably be that this film is akin to long-lost home videos that have been unearthed by someone who uses them to take us on a journey through her childhood. The film is a very quiet affair, with Baker realizing the immense power of silence as a tool of artistic expression. The camera sometimes lingers a few moments too long on a shot that would be negligible in any other context – a distant conversation between two adults where the words are incomprehensible, a quiet meal shared between lovers, or the protagonist playing a hauntingly beautiful melody on her piano. Time is not something that Baker takes for granted, and she crafts a film that is intentionally quite slow, pacing the story to be reflective of something much more profound concealed within the narrative. It’s a deeply textured film that contains multiple layers, and the experience of watching Janet Planet is not one of collecting all the disparate narrative details and placing them together in a manner that makes sense, but rather being guided into this working-class tableaux, and given the chance to quietly follow the protagonist, and then choosing a particular aspect of the plot to hold onto, unravelling its many layers and coming to discover new details hidden in every moment. Janet Planet is a film that rewards multiple viewings – Baker’s stunningly simple direction allows every frame to contain many details, some of which may not catch our eye at first, but which we begin to notice when returning to these moments, each discovery adding to our complex understanding of this story. Through all of this, the director has created a film that somehow feels both sprawling and intimate, where the scope of human existence is condensed into this lovingly tender story of a mother and daughter navigating the world, acting as a poignant meditation on the passage of time.

The two leads of Janet Planet are immensely complex characters and required meticulous attention to detail when it came to casting. Lacy needed someone appropriate in terms of age, and who possessed a very particular blend of innocence and world-weariness, between which the character is meant to oscillate as the film progresses. Zoe Ziegler is an absolute revelation – this is her first film performance, yet she carries herself with such confidence and self-assured grit, that you would not expect this to come from a debut actor, especially one this young. She is a more passive protagonist, someone who observes more than she guides the narrative, and the young actor is exceptional in the role, delivering a stunning, heartfelt performance that is as daring as it is beautifully poetic. Janet, conversely, is a role designed to be a showcase for an actor who has rarely received the credit they deserve, with Julianne Nicholson being the beneficiary of the search for the right person to bring the part to life. Nicholson is a well-liked actor who has delivered stunning work in the past, but who has rarely been given the showcase her talents deserve. This is likely going to be seen as some of her greatest work – it’s a simple character that is rendered as absolutely extraordinary through the tenderness she brings to the part, infusing every recess of Janet with nuances, some of which are not even fully explored, but are still present. We desperately want to understand this woman, and the fact that we never quite get the opportunity to get a glimpse into her mind, through her decision to keep a distance from everyone except her daughter, is what gives the film its sense of intrigue. Nicholson is exceptional, with her blend of fragility and hardiness being one of the many intentional contradictions that the film draws on as it creates this fascinating, ambigious character who contains multitudes, all of which we desperately attempt to grasp, but never get the opportunity to.

Baker is a singular voice, and any concern that she was not well-equipped to step into the world of cinema is proven entirely false from the first striking image to the final haunting melodies, everything in between is the work of a truly gifted voice who observes the human condition with honesty and compassion. Janet Planet is an extraordinary film – there is an ethereal grit that anchors this film and makes it more authentic than even the boldest social realist texts, particularly because the intention here isn’t to represent reality in terms of its story, but rather evoke a specific atmosphere, mainly through the emotions that guide the story. Even if the viewer doesn’t have firsthand experience of being a slightly impoverished child growing up in rural Massachusetts at some ambiguous point in the past, certain elements of this film will resonate – the curiosity about the world outside the front door, the desire to explore your identity and come to terms with who you are, or even the challenges that come in the moment you realize your parents are not only imperfect but have not quite figured out life themselves yet, and are on the same voyage of self-discovery as their children, just having to conceal their confusion and curiosity to be something of a guide, which can be psychologically and emotionally taxing for anyone who has yet to comprehend the scope of reality. It’s a stunning, complex film that establishes Baker as an essential new voice in cinema and someone who has seamlessly transitioned from one medium to the other with extraordinary results. Simple but striking from its earliest moments to its final scene, Janet Planet is an astonishing work of empathetic, heartwrenchingly beautiful cinema, and even more proof that there is nothing quite as impactful as a story that is told with care and compassion, all of which is a perfect starting point to describe this wonderful and daring film.