Tag Archives: Julianne Nicholson

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Gravitational Pull

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Janet Planet

by Hope Madden

It’s a quietly eventful summer for 11-year-old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler, astonishing). Although writer/director Annie Baker’s languid slice of life may appear unremarkable, what she captures is a bittersweet awakening rarely caught so astutely on film.

What opens feeling touched by absurdity settles into a mood more influenced by the unique world view of an unusual child. Baker’s fascinating framing choices emphasize Lacy’s perspective—what she sees keenly and what does not command her attention.

Inside her idyllic home in rural Western Massachusetts with her mother, Janet (Julianne Nicholson, equally astonishing), Lacy is comfortable. It’s a dreamy place where she is observant, imaginative, accepted and protected. But something is knocking.

A Pulitzer-winning playwright making her feature debut behind the camera, Baker relies on silences and gestures to mark the dramatic architecture of her story and the arc of her characters. The film’s unhurried nature might make some impatient, but both Nicholson and Zeigler compel your interest.

Nicholson—as reliable an actor as you will ever find—conveys both affectionate acceptance and frustrated longing as the single mother of the precocious Lacy. But it’s newcomer Ziegler who truly impresses, carving out a unique, memorable character you hope time and society won’t change and conformity won’t touch.

Janet Planet is loosely structured around three characters who briefly occupy space with the duo—gruff boyfriend Wayne (Will Patton), friend Regina (Sophie Okonedo), and potential suitor Avi (Elias Koteas). Each is wonderful—Okonedo, in particular—contributing something lovely to this richly textured tale.

Though well established in the theater, Baker’s first foray into filmmaking feels effortlessly cinematic. She marks a specific moment in the relationship between a parent and child, a transition that often accompanies the time just this side of adolescence, still precariously clinging to childhood. Bittersweet, beautifully observed and honest, Janet Planet also marks an impressive transition for Baker from stage to screen.

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Runnin’ Down a Dream

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Dream Scenario

by Hope Madden

Why does the zebra look the way it does? Can anyone think of a benefit to that pattern? Those stripes help zebras blend into the group, go unnoticed. And when no one notices you, you’re safe.

But wouldn’t everyone rather feel special?

Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) would. Too bad there is nothing particularly special about him. He’s a tenured professor, but not a researcher. He wants to write a book, just hasn’t actually written anything yet. And then, somehow, suddenly, everyone is dreaming about him.

Well, the dream is not about Paul, per se. But there he is, anyway, standing there and not participating.

Writer/director Kristoffer Borgli (Sick of Myself) once again analyzes and satirizes the cultural obsession with attention. But by moving the focus to a middle-aged, relatively ordinary man, Borgli removes the wag of the finger toward the young and their vacuous nature. Instead, Dream Scenario becomes an unnervingly accurate portrayal of our whole cultural attention span.

This is absurdist horror comedy at its best, leaning toward Charlie Kaufman’s take on humanity. That, of course, makes Cage an apt choice for the lead. Cage delivered two magnificent comedic performances in the Kaufman-penned Adaptation, garnering an Oscar nomination. In that film he played a neurotic intellectual and an oblivious dufus. In a way, he does that here, too.

Every half dozen films or so, Nic Cage reminds us of his singular talent. Pig (2021) again proved his humbling dramatic power. Dream Scenario (like Adaptation) recalls his nimble comedic skill.

Equally nimble is Borgli’s writing, coloring the all-too-real horror of celebrity with running jokes about ants, zebras and the Talking Heads. None of the richness in the script is lost on Cage or a game ensemble –including Julianne Nicholson, Michael Cera and Tim Meadows – mainly playing it straight so Cage can melt down gloriously.

The director slides so easily through tonal shifts that even one sincere, romantic moment feels at home. As does the film’s theme: none of this is real.

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Welcome to the Jungle

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Monos

by George Wolf

On a mountaintop that rests among the clouds, eight child soldiers guard an American hostage and a conscripted milk cow.

They play what games they can manufacture and train for battle under the exacting eye of The Messenger (Wilson Salazar), whose visits bring supplies, decisions on permitted sexual “partnerships” among the group, and orders from the commanding Organization on how to carry out an ambiguous mission.

While The Messenger is away, one bad decision creates a crisis with no easy solution, becoming the catalyst for Alejandro Landes’s unconventional and often gut-wrenching Spanish-language thriller.

Yes, you’ll find parallels to Lord of the Flies, even Apocalypse Now, but Landes continually upends your assumptions by tossing aside any common rulebooks on storytelling.

Just whose story is this, anyway?

The Doctora (Julianne Nicholson)? She’s the hostage with plenty of clever plans for a jungle escape, and a sympathy for some of her captors which may be used against her.

What about Bigfoot (Moises Arias, impressive as usual)? He’s got plenty of ideas on what’s best for the group, but without Messenger’s blessing as squad leader, limited power.

Wolfie, the “old man” of 15? Shy, baby-faced Rambo? Lady? Boom Boom?

Landes never gives us the chance to feel confident about anything we think we know, as the powerful score from Mica Levi (Under the Skin, Jackie) and an impeccable sound design totally immerse us in an atmosphere of often breathless tension and wanton violence.

While Monos has plenty to say about how survival instincts can affect the lines of morality, it favors spectacle over speeches. Even the gripping final shot, containing some of the film’s most direct dialog, conveys its message with minimal force, which almost always hits the hardest.

It does here. Landes, in just his second narrative feature, crafts a primal experience of alienation and survival, with a strange and savage beauty that may shake you.