Review: ‘Another Earth’
"Another Earth" is such a mess of jumbled-up good ideas it's hard to know exactly what to make of it. Do you salute its ambitions or lament the fact that it bites off far more than it can chew? The debut film from Mike Cahill -- who directed, shot, edited, co-wrote, and produced the Sundance hit -- "Another Earth" revels in its own contradictions. It's a low-budget indie with some decent special effects, it's got a sci-fi hook although it's actually a romantic drama, and it's massively precious although it's incredibly heartfelt. Its juxtapositions never quite congeal, and yet it wins you over anyway.
The film introduces us to Rhoda (co-writer Brit Marling), a promising young astrophysicist about to head off to MIT. But one drunken night before school starts, she hears about an amazing discovery: A parallel planet to Earth (dubbed Earth 2) is moving in our orbit. Stunned and intoxicated, Rhoda absentmindedly plows her car into a vehicle, killing two of the passengers and leaving the third in a coma. Four years later, Rhoda gets out of prison and tries to put her life back together, first deciding she wants to see the man (now out of a coma) whom she hit.
In its advertising, "Another Earth" has leaned heavily on its intriguing premise about what any of us would do if we discovered that there was another Earth in which a copy of ourselves existed. Like other Sundance sci-fi indies such as "Primer" or "Moon," "Another Earth" uses science fiction as a way to tell a story about what it means to be human. But unlike those other films, Cahill's drama barely feels like a sci-fi movie, its parallel-earth hook a distant conceit as removed from the central story as Earth 2's orbiting sphere is mostly just a small ball in the sky above the characters.
More accurately, "Another Earth" is about Rhoda's redemption through her slowly evolving relationship with John (William Mapother), a classical composer who lost his wife and son in the accident. Somewhat conveniently for the story, John slipped into a coma after the crash and never saw Rhoda's face. (Likewise, because Rhoda was a minor, her records were sealed, and John hasn't tried to find out the driver's identity.) So when Rhoda goes to John's home to confess, she loses her nerve, lying that she's a house cleaner offering her services. It's a far-fetched plot device meant to illustrate how unlikely it is when they begin to bond. But while the two actors do a solid job navigating these convoluted waters, the movie's central story never quite justifies its rickety foundation.
But this isn't the only iffy narrative device going on in "Another Earth." Cahill isn't shy about pulling out manipulative tricks to elicit emotional reactions from his audience. Whether it's the drawn-out staging of the opening car crash -- this is yet another film that follows the deathless movie rule that if people in a car are laughing and happy, their blissful lives are about to get ruined in an accident -- or a few other gimmicks later in the story, Cahill likes to push our buttons, and he likes to push them as hard as he can. For such a quiet, simple story, "Another Earth" isn't interested in subtlety when it comes to its emotional payload.
But while I fought with "Another Earth" more than I would have liked, I have to admit that Rhoda and John's emerging love affair got to me. Much like the film's spell on its audience, these two have a slender but undeniable hold on one another, and it's partly because we (and Rhoda) know on some level it simply can't last. Cahill wants to tell a bold story about destiny and second chances, but as the film went along I found myself caring less and less about that other Earth. We often complain that films aren't bold or ambitious enough, that they settle for pat conflicts and easy resolutions. "Another Earth" is one of those very rare films where I wish it had tried for less than it does.
Grade: B-
