Fleapit revisited:Janet Planet.

Eleven year old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) lives in a remote, yet pretty luxurious and spacious, cabin somewhere in the forests of Massachusetts with her acupuncturist mother Janet (Julianne Nicholson). Lucy hasn't got any friends, she threatens suicide at summer camp, she refuses to dance at some kind of hoedown, and she doesn't even seem to get any pleasure from her regular piano lessons, despite the fact she's pretty good.

Despite all that, she's a sweet kid - and a clingy one too. She still sleeps in her mother's bed and likes to hold her hand and hug her at night. Janet worries about this but not that much. Janet doesn't seem to, on the surface anyway, worry about anything very much. She's a bit of a closed book which makes Annie Baker's new film, Janet Planet (presumably named that because, for Lacy, Janet is her planet), a sometimes not particularly engrossing watch.

Baker's made her name as a playwright and it's a medium she excels in. I've seen her three most recent plays at London's National Theatre (John, The Antipodes, and Infinite Life) and each one of them has been excellent. John is a strong contender for the greatest piece of theatre I've ever witnessed - and I've seen quite a lot over the years, being old and all that.

So, Janet Planet was a slight disappointment. It was more a film of feels than it was of action. Or even, for that matter, dialogue. The basic premise is that three different characters enter Janet and Lacy's life and do those characters manage to change the dynamic much? Not really.

There's Wayne (Will Patton), Janet's boyfriend. Wayne doesn't do much and he doesn't say much. It's implied he's typical of the sort of men Janet attracts and is attracted to. She has no trouble attracting guys but nothing ever seems to last. It's not explicitly clear why but the insinuation is either she gets bored of them quite quickly or that she wises up to how unsuitable they are.

Avi (Elias Koteas) is a poetry reading cosmic chancer who seems to run what may or may not be a cult. When he's done trying to give away his zucchinis, speculating on God and the Big Bang, or performing ludicrous - though entertaining, folk rituals he starts to turn his attention to winning Janet and Lacy over.

Regina (Sophie Okonedo) is Avi's ex-partner and an old friend of Janet's whom she hasn't seen for years. Janet puts her up and Lacy, a tiny bit, warms to her. Regina at least takes Lacy on adventures (rather boring adventures, to be fair) and tells stories (pointless and discursive ones) but there appears to be some unresolved tension between Janet and Regina and Regina, like Avi and like Wayne, is soon gone leaving Janet and Lacy alone together again.

Which appears to be how Lacy, if not necessarily Janet, likes it. I kept expecting something to happen in the film but, a few interesting snatches of dialogue aside, nothing really did. Janet Planet appears to simply be a study of a mother and a near teenage daughter and the dynamic between them. You could call it a rites of passage movie but, apart from one leading question Lacy asks Janet, there's not exactly a lot of rites going on.

If anything it's a meditation on the human condition, of what it is to be with one person for nearly all your life. Bonded together in love and respect but also, sometimes, in resentment. Annie Baker, I have no doubt, is an absolute master of her craft but, for me, this was the weakest piece of work I've seen by her. It is her debut film and I feel fairly confident she can return, eventually, with something that carries equal heft as her stage work. Very confident in fact. I also suspect that Janet Planet is a film I may return to one day and see in a whole new light. Time will tell. I just hope I have as much time as Janet and Lucy seem to as they amble around their house, mow their lawn, lie around on the sofa, and eat breakfast cereal.