Janet Planet

In 1991, the summer before middle school, Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) brims with questions and gripes. Tightly bonded with her unmarried mom, Janet (Julianne Nicholson), she’s slowly moving from her parent’s orbit into her own, and this remarkable debut from prize-winning playwright Annie Baker portrays this shift with careful intimacy and a wonderfully askew visual eye. Living in rural Massachusetts, Lacy’s days are languorous but not without incident — she has piano lessons, races around the mall with the daughter of Janet’s boyfriend, and attends an odd outdoor theatrical headed up by a semi-guru type named Avi (Elias Koteas). The film is remarkably astute in illustrating how adolescent self-awareness builds from small life experiences and careful observation of adult behavior, and Ziegler perfectly captures the churning of Lacy’s brain and emotions. As Janet, Nicholson is equally astonishing, ever-so-slightly dissatisfied with her life but always there to be the gently listening ear for her unique child.