The film has enough empathy to go round – for a mother overwhelmed by a child’s bottomless need, and a child’s agony over the changing rules of their bond.

| Feb 10, 2025

The playwright Annie Baker shows a deft cinematic touch in her largely autobiographical directing debut.

| Dec 20, 2024

A tender yet subversive memory play set in western Massachusetts during the summer of 1991, about a dour little girl.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 1, 2024

[Annie Baker] is an expert in transmitting lots of emotion with very little action, and Janet Planet is no different, using micro-gestures and passing expressions to tell her story.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 17, 2024

Nostalgic but never naff, Janet Planet fills the screen with warmth and compassion for its charming, flawed and very human characters.

| Aug 26, 2024

Janet Planet plays a little like a memory piece from an unknown future – the assembled past life of an adult who, as a child, grasped only a bare majority of the tensions unfolding about her. A lovely, flawed idyll.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 8, 2024

Easily the greatest movie ever (incidentally) named after an Outkast lyric, Janet Planet marks the directorial debut of the Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Annie Baker, who duly transfers her mastery of understatement from stage to screen.

| Jul 23, 2024

An exquisite and treasurable account of a complicated mother-daughter bond.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 22, 2024

This gentle and intimate coming-of-age drama from beloved playwright Annie Baker is an assured but frustratingly slow-paced directorial debut which evokes the bittersweet nostalgia of ‘90s pre-teen girlhood.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 19, 2024

We understand every word and action here to have symbolic value, and Janet Planet is not afraid of its own artificiality. It’s sparse in narrative, but thick with implications.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 19, 2024

More attuned to the language of cinema than many playwrights would be, her movie is softly spoken and often absurdly funny, but also deceptively un-cosy.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 18, 2024

The performances are strong, but the writing is such that the characters’ passions, fears and grievances are in some way veiled; yet there is subtlety and indirectness in this.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 16, 2024

It all has a unifying vision because of the connection between these two women.

| Jul 13, 2024

Annie Baker’s first feature conceals its depth of experience under a narrow array of details.

| Jun 28, 2024

On the surface, it may appear that nothing much happens in "Janet's Planet," but dig a little bit deeper and it's all there.

| Original Score: B | Jun 28, 2024

Its soul emerges in the questions Baker waits for us to ask. What turns stubborn girls into pliable women? Was our personality forged in opposition to our parents, or will we repeat their mistakes?

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 28, 2024

This small, anxious being follows you even after the screen goes dark. She's not just tugging at Janet. She's tugging at us.

| Jun 27, 2024

Janet Planet is content with revealing odds and ends about its characters rather than having them confront melodramatic situations. But to enjoy it, you must be patient. Do that, and the rewards will come.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 27, 2024

If you grew up in the 1990s post-hippie Massachusetts performance arts scene (as Baker did), Janet Planet may tug on your nostalgia, but you may not feel otherwise drawn to its ethereal qualities.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 27, 2024

Whether Baker will make another film matters less than that she continues to write: Language is her medium.

| Jun 27, 2024