Skip to content

Movie Review: Another Earth

Written By:

Paul Mount
another_earth_review

alt


Review: Another Earth (12A) / Director: Mike Cahill / Screenplay by: Mike Cahill, Britt Marling / Starring: Britt Marling, William Mapother, Matthew lee-Erlbach / Release Date: Out Now



Talk about bad timing. Promising young student Rhoda Williams (Marling) is out at night drinking whilst drunk and is, not surprisingly, a bit distracted when a mirror-image planet Earth suddenly appears in the sky.


So startled is Rhoda that she loses control of the car and she ploughs into another vehicle, killing two of the occupants. Rhoda is jailed for four years and the accident survivor, music professor John Burroughs (Mapother), is left comatose, his pregnant wife and son dead. Emerging from prison an introverted, nervy changed woman, Rhoda wants to slink into the shadows and she takes a mundane job as a cleaner at the local school. But a chance close encounter with the grieving Burroughs persuades Rhoda to at least try to make amends for the devastation she’s wrought but her attempts are fraught with complications when she finds herself posing as a domestic cleaner, unable to tell Burroughs the truth. As her presence in his life starts to ease the professor out of his despair, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity forces Rhoda to confront herself and her past head-on and she has some life-changing decisions to make.



It might not sound like it, but there’s a big, solid sci-fi concept throbbing away at the heart of ‘Another Earth’ and while it’s only explored in the broadest and most allegorical of manners (the film’s not concerned with what would be the  physical effects of such close proximity with a planet the same size as our own or the psychological consequences for humanity of Earth 2’s discovery) it informs every frame of this moody, melancholic and proudly lo-fi indie movie. To all intents and purposes this is a two-hander, two characters both devastated by the same tragedy, two characters still trying to understand and make sense of what’s happened years after the event. But where Rhoda at least has a shot at redemption and the chance of a new life – albeit a rather less starry one than she might have been expecting as an MIT student – John Burroughs has lost everything, even the will to live, and he’s become a grubby, listless recluse when Rhoda inveigles her way into his life and slowly but surely starts to turn him around. In the background there’s constant media chatter about Earth 2 – what will it be like? How can we communicate with it? The film doesn’t explain why it’s taken four years to make contact with the planet – when it’s made it’s through a simple radio transmission where the mirror-image nature of the planet and its occupants is revealed – and the conceit of a competition where the prize is a seat on a shuttle to the new planet seems a bit unlikely when no-one has any real idea what the planet’s actually like. But ‘Another Earth’ isn’t hugely bothered with such relative inconsequentialities; the film needs Rhoda to become obsessed with Earth 2 because of what it’s done to her, it needs her to want to leave her world behind and travel to another one, particularly when she realises, on watching a late-night TV broadcast, that Earth 2, identical as it may be, might possibly offer a ’road not travelled’ alternative.


Like last month’s ’Take Shelter’, this is a raw and intelligent indie movie which takes some big ideas and grounds them in a four-square real world populated not with super-heroes in tights but with ordinary folk trying to deal with something extraordinary. The script is tight and economic, the performances from both Marling, a strikingly-attractive girl and a name to watch – wait till Hollywood gets its hands on her – and Mapother are spectacularly persuasive and compelling. The jagged, handheld cinematography gives the film a bold and sometimes uncomfortable intimacy and the simple visual image of the duplicate Earth hanging in the sky gazing balefully down upon its twin is effortlessly effective. It’s not often this reviewer’s neck-hairs are forced to stand to attention but there’s a sequence in ‘Another Earth’ where Burroughs takes Rhoda to a small concert hall and performs a beautiful and haunting piece of music with a most unusual instrument which will remain with me for some time.


Refreshingly simple and honest as it handles big emotional and fantastical subjects, ‘Another Earth’ is an enchanting and rewarding little movie, another win for the indie sector as the big studios go round and round in circles obsessed with remaking and rebooting and squeezing every last penny from even the most exhausted of franchises. ‘Another Earth’ is a movie to cherish.



Expected rating: 6 out of 10


Actual rating:


alt

Paul Mount

You May Also Like...

chinese remake of anaconda drops trailer

ANACONDA Trailer Grants First Look At Remake Of 1997 Horror Flick

Three sequels and a spinoff-crossover film wasn’t enough for the 1997 creature feature Anaconda, which not only has a new movie in development, but is getting a Chinese remake! From
Read More
black widow star scarlett johansson in talks to lead new universal jurassic world film

Scarlett Johansson In Talks To Join JURASSIC WORLD Film

Another MCU star appears to be taking up the reins for Universal’s new Jurassic World movie: two-time Oscar nominee Scarlett Johansson is reportedly in talks to lead the franchise that
Read More

Exclusive Reveal! Titan Comics to Deliver Prehistoric Hysterics in First 2 DUMB DINOS Collection

Titan Comics have exclusively revealed to STARBURST that they’re gearing up to publish the first-ever collection of the hilarious cult digital comic strip 2 Dumb Dinos, and we’re not the
Read More

New Dates For Lovecraftian Key of Dreams

Key of Dreams has announced new spaces for its titular immersive luxury horror event. The critically acclaimed company is known for its overnight experiences that dunk you into a strange
Read More

FAB Café to Host Free Film Screening of New Indie Comedy SECRETS OF A WALLABY BOY

We’re well known for our championing of truly independent filmmakers here at STARBURST, so it’s doubly exciting to be writing about one of our own! After joining the crew in
Read More
colin farrell returns as oswald cobblepot in the penguin series trailer

Colin Farrell Returns In THE PENGUIN Trailer

Colin Farrell returns as Gotham City’s answer to Tony Soprano in the first trailer for Max series The Penguin, which spins out of the world of the 2022 DC film
Read More