Janet Planet | 2023 | PG-13 | – 4.1.5

Why is “Janet Planet” rated PG-13? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “brief strong language, some drug use and thematic elements.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes partial non-sexual nudity, discussions of sexuality, discussions of heterosexual and same-sex relationships, a preteen threatening to kill herself, many frank discussions of the death of a parent and ending relationships, and about 2 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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An 11-year-old girl (Zoe Ziegler) spends the summer with her mother (Julianne Nicholson) learning about relationships and trying to make sense of life and her place in it. Also with Will Patton, Edie Moon Kearns, Mary Shultz, Sophie Okonedo and Elias Koteas. Directed by Annie Baker. People sing a song during a play in an unidentified language without translation. [Running Time: 1:53]

Janet Planet SEX/NUDITY 4

 – A preteen girl walks through a house at night and watches a man sleeping in bed with her mother (we see the man’s bare chest, abdomen and one leg to the upper thigh); the woman’s leg and arm are draped across the man.
► A woman lays with her head on another woman’s abdomen (there’s no sexual implication). A man and woman talk outside a house and we cannot hear the conversation; the man touches the woman’s arm and she leaves with him. Two women hug in greeting. Men and women contra dance and spin and hold each other while a preteen girl watches and says that she does not want to participate.
► Two preteen girls read a book (one reads it out loud) in a bookstore about a young woman leaning over a man and kissing him. A woman tells her preteen daughter that a man has slept with many of the women in a group (that she refers to as a cult). A preteen girl asks a woman if many people fall in love with her. A preteen girl asks her mother, “Would you be disappointed if one day I dated a girl” and the woman replies that she would not be disappointed. A woman tells her preteen daughter that she believes that she (the woman) has the ability to make any man fall in love with her if she tried and that this has ruined her life. A man and a woman walk together and sit under a tree having a picnic; the man rests his head on the woman’s lap and reads to her, and then stops to tell her that he really likes her. A preteen girl and her mother lie in bed together; the woman tells the child that her boyfriend thinks it’s weird that they still sleep together and the child asks the woman for a piece of her to sleep with when she leaves the room (the woman gives her a strand of her hair). A preteen girl tells her mother, “I think you should break up with him,” after she asks, “What do I do?” A woman tells a preteen girl that her mother has terrible taste in men.
► A presumably fully nude man (we see his bare back to the upper buttock, chest and abdomen) moves erratically in a house and a preteen girl sees him through a large window; she tells her mother that something is wrong with him and the woman inserts chiropractic needles into his legs and arm. A woman wears a nightgown that when backlit reveals the outline of her legs to the hips in a couple of scenes. A man wears a tank T-shirt and boxer shorts as a woman performs acupuncture on him (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A shirtless man sits on his knees outside a woman’s house (we see his bare chest, abdomen and back). A woman wears a top with spaghetti straps that reveal her bare shoulders and cleavage. A preteen girl showers and we see her partial bare shoulders. A woman wears a towel wrapped around her (we see her bare shoulders and cleavage).

Janet Planet VIOLENCE/GORE 1

 – A woman yells at her preteen daughter to leave the room and a man lumbers toward the child and slams the door on her. A woman panics when she finds a tick on her preteen daughter’s head; we see it on the floor and they light a match, burn it and flush it down a toilet.
► A preteen girl wakes up at night, walks across a field to a barn and uses a telephone to call her mother and tells her, “I’m gonna kill myself if you don’t come get me” (she’s at a sleep away camp). A preteen girl says that a man set himself on fire in a town square to protest a war. A preteen girl tells others that her mother’s boyfriend was in a motorcycle accident and that’s why she needs to go home (he did not have an accident). A woman confronts another woman about having given away all her money and that she doesn’t have a job and so she can’t pay rent. Two women talk off-screen and we hear muffled raised voices. A man talks about the Big Bang Theory and that out of nothing came something and says that we are each God; the man refers to the Buddhist scripture and that “there is only one I.”
► Two preteen girls ask people for money in a shopping mall. A preteen girl sits down on the road when her school bus arrives, she does not get on the bus and tells her mother that she is ill with a headache that makes her feel like she is going to throw up; we see her leaning over a toilet and hear her spit (no goo is visible), and later she lies on a sofa and holds a plastic bag (we do not see her vomit). A preteen girl tells her mother, “Every moment of my life is [mild obscenity deleted],” and the woman tells the child that she is also unhappy most of the time. A woman tells her preteen daughter that she is developing a bad pattern when the child says that she didn’t think anyone liked her, but she was wrong and that she wants to stay at camp after all. A preteen girl and her mother lie in bed together; the woman tells the child that her boyfriend thinks it’s weird that they still sleep together and the child asks the woman for a piece of her to sleep with when she leaves the room (the woman gives her a strand of her hair). A woman is upset when another woman interrupts her when she is talking about her bad decision-making and she tells her, “You stepped on my toe.” A preteen girl says that she has a hard time making friends. Chapter dividers read, “End Wayne,” “End Regina,” and “End Avi,” A preteen girl says that she has no friends and goes on to say that it is a complete mystery to her why. A woman talks about her mother dying when she was young and that she moved in with her father; she describes the trauma of someone sending her father a letter that said that she was hanging around with a group of bad characters and doing drugs and her father sent her to Ireland. A woman says that she had a nervous breakdown. A woman describes her parents as “a Holocaust-surviving dad and an angry mom.” A bumper sticker reads, “Free Tibet.” A woman tells her preteen daughter that the desire to be liked or loved is a very “female thing.” A woman prostrates herself on the ground while repeating a self-affirming phrase in front of her preteen daughter. A preteen girl lies on the ground outside her house and her mother asks her to go inside; we see her lying on the floor inside later.
► People wear large papier-mâché costumes that resemble large animals and a large human head during a play. Papier-mâché masks and costumes hang in a room and a man and woman followed by a preteen girl walk through.
► We hear that a man has a migraine headache and he lies on a sofa in the dark saying that he needs quiet. A preteen girl sits on a toilet (no flesh is visible) and she flushes and stands up when a woman knocks on the bathroom door; the girl leaves without washing her hands and the woman tells her to use the kitchen sink. Preteen campers sing a song with a young man about drinking something. A preteen girl takes a shower and puts a patch of her hair on the shower wall. A woman says that she knows what it feels like to be a baby in the womb and describes it as “wet and warm.”

Janet Planet LANGUAGE 5

 – About 2 F-words (there are other possible F-words during a muffled conversation), 2 mild obscenities, name-calling (weird, strange, terrible, awful, forthrightness, aggressive quality), exclamations (don’t kid yourself, phew), 2 religious exclamations. (e.g. oh my God, you are God, Brahman). | profanity glossary |

Janet Planet SUBSTANCE USE

 – Two women take pills that we are told will help them sleep, a woman says that she hates antibiotics, a preteen girl takes an antibiotic, and a reference is made to teens doing drugs. A woman drinks a glass of wine, a man holds a bottle of wine when he arrives at a woman’s house and the man and the woman drink wine with a meal. A woman smokes a cigarette.

Janet Planet DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Being sad, growing up, relationships ending, suicide, experiences, ego, nihilism, the Big Bang Theory, narcissism, cults, mental illness, making bad decisions, not trusting yourself, guilt, single parenting, liberation, self-image, instinct, Tibet.

Janet Planet MESSAGE

 – It can be hard to really know and trust yourself.