The list of playwrights-turned-filmmakers is not as long as one might think, as the two disciplines often require much different mindsets. In the modern age, those who have made the leap are mostly men, including Aaron Sorkin, Martin McDonagh, Mike Leigh, and David Mamet. Now joining their ranks is Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Baker with Janet Planet.

The film revolves around Janet (Julianne Nicholson) and her shy and awkward daughter, Lacy (Zoe Ziegler), although, as the title indicates, it would be more accurate to say everything and everyone orbits around Janet. A hippie acupuncturist, Janet has a habit of attracting men, and usually not the nicest kind. The film tracks her and Lacy’s time with two such men, Wayne (Will Patton) and Avi (Elias Koteas), as well as a good friend, Regina (Sophie Okonedo).

Most of these comings and goings are seen through the eyes of Lacy, who does her best to keep the attention of her mother. She’s not always successful, though, so she often retreats to her room to play with her collection of figurines. She gets the occasional respite, like a mall outing with Wayne’s daughter, Sequoia (Edie Moon Kearns), or a trip to see an esoteric outdoor play, but she’s mostly left to her own devices.

Baker goes the mostly-plotless route for the film, with the story taking place over an uncertain amount of time in 1991. The three adults who come in and out of their lives are marked by chapter headings, but nothing much happens during any their stays with Janet and Lacy. Instead, Baker seems to be trying to establish the narcissistic tendencies of Janet, who seems to be increasingly frustrated by Lacy’s clingy nature.

However, the film is not as illuminating as Baker might intend, and it actually gets more cryptic as it goes along. The sections with Regina and Avi contain some long conversations – one addled by drugs – that seem to have no point either for the characters or the story at large. Late in the film, Avi recites a poem for Janet that he has to repeat when Janet says she “zoned out.” Viewers might get the same feeling watching these stupor-inducing scenes.

Films that center around a mother-daughter relationship tend to feature big emotions like love or anger, but that is not the case here, as both Janet and Lacy seem like they could take or leave each other. Lacy is around the same age that Baker, who was born in 1981, was in 1991, so it’s possible that she’s telling a semi-autobiographical kind of story; if that’s the case, it’s not made explicit in the text.

Both Nicholson and Ziegler give nice performances, although due to the nature of the film, neither one of them is overly involving. They’re both interesting to watch as performers, but their characters never pop. Okonedo has the showiest role in the film, helped by Regina being a performer in the play-within-the-film. Patton and Koteas, perhaps by design, give one-note performances that make their characters unknowable.

There may be those who vibe with the wavelength of the story Baker is telling in Janet Planet, but in this critic’s opinion, it doesn’t contain enough meat on its bones to make for an engrossing experience. Certain films are universal and others are only for niche audiences; this film is firmly in the latter category.

---

Janet Planet opens in theaters on June 28.