We attended the screening of Janet Planet at The Lincoln Center for the 61st annual New York Film Festival. It’s a beautiful coming of age story, that’s not quite like others you may have seen. With the viewer’s senses heightened, use of subtle humor and oceans of feeling conveyed with the smallest gestures.
It’s the summer before Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) starts sixth grade, and she is spending the lazy months with her acupuncturist mother, Janet (Julianne Nicholson), in their home in the woods. As the months drift by, the bespectacled, taciturn girl, fiercely observant, watches Janet and three enigmatic adults who drift in and out of their lives, whether romantic interests or reconnected friends.
Set in 1991 rural Western Massachusetts, the superb debut film from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker is a work of surreal tranquility that moves at a different, lost pace of life, and which perceives heartbreak just as Lacy is beginning to grasp the world and her place in it.
Nicholson and Ziegler perform their roles with an inspiring lack of sentimentality, and the wondrous supporting cast includes Elias Koteas, Sophie Okonedo, and Will Patton.
We had the privilege of listening to the director, Annie Baker and the two lead actresses in a Q&A at the festival.
Q: What inspired you to make the film?
Baker: There is a word document on a computer I had when I was 19 or 20 in college titled, Janet Planet. This was the first idea for a movie that I’ve ever had. It sat dormant for 20 years. I recently found some very early dialogue, that’s not in the movie between a mother and daughter, sitting on the porch talking and it’s very much these two characters.
It lived with me for a very long time and I’ve written a lot of screenplays for hire over the years, but I never set out to write a film to direct. When I realized I wanted to do that, I went back to this as it was a film that lived inside of me for a really long time.
I always wanted to direct a film, it was one of the only things I wanted to do when I was a little girl.
Q: We see a lot of films that talk about childhood and coming of age, adolescence, this cusp moment in cinema is a popular subject. Your film resists a lot of conventions of the childhood experience. Was that a conscious decision in making the film?
A: You know how you have an idea for a project or thing that feels very true to you? There was a point, a sinking feeling, when I realized how many coming of age 12 year olds there are out there. You just have to close your eyes and keep going. There are so many amazing ones out there that influenced the film too. Something that occurred to me early on, especially dealing with a girl, was to explore the onset of puberty, boys, being seen that way by the world. So many coming of age stories with girls are about sexuality, which can also be a totally fascinating subject. I wanted to capture something else about the intellectual and spiritual development that happens with a little girl.
I had seen all lot of movies about boys dealing with that. I wanted to show where you feel a child’s brain in a way of seeing the world change in the course of a movie. I also wanted to deal with the idea of a mother as your love object for the first 12 years. Your relationship with that love and beauty object (your mom) changes over the course of the movie. It’s lovers, it’s a marriage but it’s a parent and a child – that I felt like was something I wanted to bring to it.
Both, the director, Annie and Julianne, discovered they grew up close to each other in Western Massachusetts. Julianne talks about how she grew up just down the road from where the film was shot. She shares how it’s such a particular part of the world and part of the state – Annie did a brilliant job of capturing that. She goes on to say that it hasn’t changed from how she remembered it as a child from ages 7-11 and instead it remains the same.
Annie: Julianne played a huge part in set design – they were able to include pieces of themselves throughout the movie.
They both agree it was a special way to be able to contribute in that way and offer reminiscent objects from their childhood in the movie.
Q to Julianne: I am curious to know how you approached the role. Was it important for you to think about who the character was beyond what you can see?
Julianne: So much of it was there on the page but Annie and I would talk regularly for the year leading up to filming. My mom was a single mom of 2 young daughter in the late 70s for a couple of years. So, I have real memories of being a little threesome. This is so close to my young life, it’s kind of scary. There’s a lot there already mixed with imagination for you to see.
Annie talks about how the casting for Lacy (Zoe) was drawn out so close to their deadline that it gives her anxiety. She still looks at introverted 11 year olds walking down the street and wonders if she should talk to them, because that was such a huge part of her life during the casting process. After Annie saw Zoe, it was hard for her to go back after that and that’s when they knew she was the one.
Despite moments of doubt when it came to budgets, Annie’s heart was set on shooting it in the location they end up at and they made it happen. They used influences from local artists and actors from theatre companies in the area. She couldn’t imagine filming anywhere else.
Annie goes on to share what she likes so much about writing is how personal it is. The more time passes, the more it feels like it has nothing to do with you. It is fun taking things from your life, there are blankets from my mom, little creatures I made as a kid, a lot of stuff from my house and my life.
We hope to continue to see movies directed by Annie as this debut was a beautiful depiction of a young girls growth.
