Another Earth

Synopsis: Rhoda (Brit Marling) is a bright young woman who has just been accepted into MIT's astrophysics program. After a party to celebrate she is driving home when the radio announces that another Earth has appeared in the sky. Looking out she is fascinated by the reality of a parallel world intruding into her universe. As she stares at the new Earth, she crashes into the parked car of John Burroughs (William Mapother), killing his wife and child. Years later she is released from prison and tries to make amends for her sins.

First off, it’s hard to call Another Earth a science fiction film. The sci-fi aspect is more of set dressing than something completely integral to the story that’s being told, but it does allow the filmmakers to take a familiar narrative and put a fresh spin on it. A post-incarceration Rhoda doesn’t want to have anything to do with the passion that led to her deadly car accident. So she gets a job as a high school janitor and cleans floors. In order to make amends for what she has done, she learns where John lives and goes to apologise, but can’t bring herself to broach the subject. Instead she pretends she’s from a cleaning company offering a good deal on home cleaning services. Since his wife and child died, John’s life has collapsed. A gifted musician and composer, his career has dipped and his house is a gigantic mess. Rhoda cleans it up, in about the most obvious of visual metaphors possible, and brings order back to the life of the man whose life she destroyed some years ago. The story beats are almost entirely predictable, but that doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable.

This is one of those films where almost all the ideas feel second-hand, but the presentation is so well done that you really don’t care. Marling and Mapother are both arresting screen presences, and their developing relationship is both beautiful and painful to watch. Knowing Rhoda's secret and waiting to see what its revelation will do is handled well. The other Earth, and the reality of another you living a different life isn’t really given its due, but it does nicely sit in the background as a kind of taunt to all the bad choices you ever made in your life. So it serves its purpose in the story of prodding at both John and Rhoda on the possibilities that their lives didn’t have to end up as screwed up as they are. I would have liked a bit more had it pushed the idea more, but the filmmakers were obviously shooting for a more lyrical than intellectually rigorous approach and for the most part it works.

Tightly directed with a nicely understated love for its characters, Another Earth is a solid film that’s definitely worth a look.

 

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