THE SPACE BETWEEN

"Janet Planet." The first time we meet Janet in "Janet Planet," a wondrous début feature from the celebrated playwright Annie Baker, she is standing on a rural road a little way from the camera.

- JUSTIN CHANG

Zoe Ziegler and Julianne Nicholson star in Annie Baker's film.

The distance is subtle, but crucial. Glimpsed from afar, surrounded by grass and sunshine, Janet (Julianne Nicholson) is a vision of loveliness- serene, earthy, and a little remote. We're seeing her through the eyes of her eleven-year-old daughter, Lacy (Zoe Ziegler), an owlish misfit with whom she shares a close bond, though we can already guess that things are about to change. Janet has come to fetch her daughter from summer camp, yet summer is far from over; Lacy called the night before, demanding liberation or death. "I'm gonna kill myself if you don't come get me," she announced, before calmly replacing the receiver. (Yes, the receiver; the movie takes place in 1991.) If Janet was at all disturbed by Lacy's threat, she doesn't show it now. Instead, she fixes Lacy with a smile, devoid of reproach or alarm, and pulls her into a warm, reassuring hug. She knows her daughter's anxieties too well to be taken aback by them, and loves her too deeply to hold them against her. Lacy loves her mother, too, yet the quality and intensity of that love will fluctuate over the remaining summer months. You could call "Janet Planet" a coming-of-age story, but that would risk lumping it together with countless movies it doesn't much resemble. It's more a story about a child at the stage where one moves beyond the intense, almost romantic, idolization of a parent-a process that, as Baker is aware, is gradual, full of hesitations and stumbles. To capture a process of disillusionment requires uncommon patience, plus keen powers of observation. Hers are up to the challenge.