ANOTHER EARTH – The Review

Art house cinemas seem to get a flood of low-budget indie dramas about drifting twenty-somethings every year. Well, here’s one with an interesting twist. ANOTHER EARTH, as it’s title suggests, is indeed about another, parallel, earth. It’s like our planet’s looking into a mirror. This film focuses not on that twin, but on how it’s sudden appearance effects the residents of this earth. And you guessed it- how this effects a woman in her twenties who seem to be adrift.

Said woman is Rhoda Williams, played by the film’s co-writer Brit Marling. We first see her celebrating at a party. Seems the young genius has been accepted by MIT. Driving home she hears on the radio the news of the discovered twin earth. Craning her head out the car window, she causes a horrific accident. We next see Rhoda being released from prison after serving four years. Her Mom, Dad and younger brother pick her up and take her back to the family home. She makes almost no effort to re-connect with them. At her request a job  agency gets her work as a janitor at a high school. Returning home one evening she stops by the scene of that accident fours years ago. She sees a man leaving flowers at the site. She follows him back to his home and decides to clean the run down house of  this composer, John Burroughs (William Mapother). In the time she’s been incarcerated, the twin planet has drifting much closer. A Richard Branson-type is mounting an expedition to this planet. He announces an essay contest that will offer a seat on the spaceship as first place. Will Rhoda enter the contest? Will she reveal the truth to John?

When I learned of the film’s premise I looked forward to an interesting speculation on the arrival of a twin earth. Unfortunately this film stays fairly grounded. We get to see the family watching an attempt at interplanetary communication on live TV and that’s it, aside from people staring up at the approaching planet. Co-writer and director Mike Cahill is very creative with these shots considering his very low budget. I just wished the scenes had some energy. This dreary-looking  film moves at a snail’s pace. The addition of a older Native-American janitor that Rhoda befriends seems a tad pretentious. There’s not much life to Rhoda’s character. She spends most of the film silently trudging through the snow, staring up, cleaning, and gazing at John. I admire that Ms. Marling worked on the script, but wish she would’ve made her character more compelling. I enjoyed seeing Mapother break away from the evil characters he’s played in films (IN THE BEDROOM) and TV (Lost), but this composer often behaves illogically. ANOTHER EARTH has a tantalizing idea, but it’s never very involving.

Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars