Indie film takes emotional twist on science-fiction genre
With its interesting premise drawn from the imagination and thoughtful, melancholy tone, it’s easy to see why “Another Earth” won awards for its Sundance premiere in January.
“Another Earth” stars Brit Marling as Rhoda Williams, a bright, young astrophysics whiz who becomes a victim to the youthful delusion of immortality after she is accepted into MIT.
After partying with friends to celebrate, she ends up in a drunk-driving accident that kills a man’s wife and son.
Four years later, after spending time in jail for DUI manslaughter, Rhoda’s hopes for an MIT education are shattered, and she is forced to take a custodial job at her high school.
She learns that John Burroughs (William Mapother), a composer and the man involved in the accident, woke up from a four-year coma. A chance encounter leads Rhoda, who wants to apologize, to his doorstep, but she can’t bring herself to do it after he doesn’t recognize her. Instead, she offers to clean his house and bonds with him over time.
Just as the title promises, there is another Earth, which first appears as a pale blue dot in the sky but grows larger daily, looming over our Earth that serves as one big blue metaphor in the sky. On the second Earth, doppelgangers of ourselves exist, according to a first-contact event between a researcher and another version of her.
Such an interesting premise would have likely been doomed to be another trashy science-fiction film filled with human clones that come to Earth to take over if directed by someone like Michael Bay.
Luckily, indie director Mike Cahill takes this premise and grounds it into a emotional pedestrian story about redemption and a chance to start over. Case in point, Rhoda writes an essay for a chance to win a trip to the second Earth. In this essay, she compares this trip to the pilgrims’ journey to the new world, with people like ex-convicts and orphans looking to start a new life.
Shooting in cinema verite style with handheld cameras and quick cuts, Cahill, who shot and edited the film himself, provides great balance between the moments of grief and the moments of beauty, such as when John performs a spontaneous concert for Rhoda with nothing but a violin bow and a saw. In addition, the electronic soundtrack by indie rock group Fall on Your Sword heightens the mysterious mood felt throughout the film.
Some aspects of the story, however, are a bit familiar, particularly the evolving relationship between Rhoda and John. The sufferer and the person who caused the suffering eventually find each other and bond through, of all things, a game of Wii boxing.
Some questions of logic need to be ignored in order to fully appreciate the emotionality within the story. For instance, why have astronomers never discovered this second Earth before it became noticeable in the night sky? And why doesn’t anybody ever seemed shocked or freaked out because of this new discovery?
In fact, the second Earth is basically there for audience speculation, causing many “what ifs” to abound. If there are duplicates of us on this second Earth, did they make the same mistakes we did? Is it possible to go to this other Earth and get a chance to change our unhappy lives by learning from our “other selves”?
But the story doesn’t revolve around this second Earth; it is simply a metaphor. The real story here revolves around two people who are crushed by the same tragedy and slowly get back on their feet emotionally.
Marling, who co-wrote the screenplay with the director, is stunning as the utterly lost Rhoda. She gives her character a spaced-out innocence with a touch of lament. This is a character who thinks that cleaning and lying in bed with the man whose life she destroyed is the best way to make thing right.
“Another Earth” is one of the most intriguing films of the year and one of the most absorbing science-fiction film to hit theaters in a while.
The film is playing at the Nickelodeon Theatre through Thursday.