If you recently watched season three of “The Bear” on Hulu, then you know episode eight brought back Jamie Lee Curtis. In her role as Donna Berzatto, Curtis appears in the “Ice Chips” episode along with her daughter Sugar (Abby Elliott), who is in labor.
The entire episode is a very tight close-up of a desperate mother-daughter dyad. To be sure, there is a straight line between this and Curtis’ insane performance in season two, for which she was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.
In 2021, Julianne Nicholson won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series. Her harrowing performance in the finale of “Mare of Easttown” still occupies significant space in my head. That she also played a desperate mother is the thread that connects her win with Curtis’s nomination.
Of course, kitchens provide the backdrop for both women’s emotionally wrenching displays. Watching Nicholson melt in Kate Winslet’s arms on the kitchen floor as the entire “Mare of Easttown” mystery is solved shows great acting at its finest.
Watching Nicholson now play another maternally challenged character in “Janet Planet” reminds me her Emmy Award could soon have company in the statuette cabinet.
Filmed entirely in western Massachusetts, “Janet Planet” offers yet another interpretation of how the mother-daughter bond forms, fizzles, and reforms.
Written and directed by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker, “Janet Planet” is set primarily in the Pioneer Valley and the Berkshire foothills of 1991.
Notably, “Janet Planet” also marks Baker’s screenwriting and film-directing debut. Janet and her 11-year-old daughter Lacy (played so well by Zoe Ziegler) go about their summer business as people do.
Janet is a single mother, and Lacy is an only child. Janet is an acupuncturist, and Lacy is learning to play the piano. There are carnival puppets and finger puppets. There are hills and trees and farmland.
Still, Janet’s ennui at the heart of her world does not diminish Lacy’s longing for an entre nous love connection with her mother. But “Janet Planet” is a quiet place that looks a lot like Pioneer Valley still does: very nurturing.
When I moved to Northampton in early 1993, one of the first things I saw was “The History of Women in Northampton from 1600 to 1980” mural that watches over the heart of the city. Glimpsing this in “Janet Planet” filled my heart with joy.
At the same time, the Pioneer Valley’s progressive vibe coupled with its affinity for peaceful protest is part of Lacy’s curiosity. While she sits in a car with one of her mom’s friends, Regina, she asks about a self-immolation on the Amherst Common.
Readers of a certain age will recall this early 1991 real-life tragedy, an apparent protest against the Persian Gulf War. For an 11-year-old trying to make sense of the world, such events are truly incomprehensible.
At the same time, Janet’s personal relationships with friends and lovers are equally difficult for her daughter to appreciate. In fact, Ziegler’s face alone conveys so much wordless expression, I would not be surprised if this 12-year-old receives an acting nomination herself.
Indeed, much of the action involves Lacy observing her mother or Lacy rearranging her dollhouse finger puppets. At the same time, Nicholson and Ziegler both give understated yet compelling performances, each captivating the other as much as the audience.
In summary, “Janet Planet” is a spellbinding but slow production. It is somewhat reminiscent to me of another Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright’s mother-daughter effort, “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds” by Paul Zindel, from another era altogether.
Of course, I would be remiss if I did not point out that “Janet Planet” is probably the next best Bechdel-tested movie coming to The Triplex on August 16!
