Director Annie Baker and star Julianne Nicholson grew up in the region. Their new film embraces its funky, overgrown normal.
The two were somewhat acquainted through New York theater circles, but it wasn’t until they were sitting together in Washington Square Park, reminiscing about their respective childhoods in Western Massachusetts, that they realized just how much they have in common. Their shared agent suggested they meet to see whether Nicholson would be a fit for the title role of “Janet Planet,” Baker’s mother-daughter tale that takes place in the 1990s near her hometown of Amherst.
“Janet Planet” unfolds from the perspective of 11-year-old Lacy , a quiet, contemplative child who lives with her single mother, an acupuncturist. Janet receives three visitors throughout the summer of 1991 whose stays reveal to Lacy that Janet might not be the woman she believed her to be. Press materials describe this gradual disillusionment as “falling out of love with your mother,” a phrase that now makes Baker wince. “I feel like it’s more complicated than that,” she says.
Baker, who grew up with a divorced mother, adds that “marriage gets a lot of gray-area screen time without too much moralizing. I felt like I hadn’t quite seen that the way I wanted to in a relationship between a parent and child.” Baker says she has written several screenplays throughout her career but selected “Janet Planet” as her directorial debut because “it was the first time I had written a screenplay that I could just really see.” While the story explores universal themes,
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Source: NPR - 🏆 96. / 63 Read more »