Review: Another Earth

Another Earth, like last year’s Never Let Me Go and fellow micro-budget indie Monsters, may not be the type of picture one regularly associates with science-fiction–there are no green aliens or races to literally stop time–but it is nonetheless strongly driven by two of the genre’s hallmarks: allegory and a sense of impending doom. If the goal of sci-fi, as I have always thought, is to tell us something about the human condition through an exaggerated reality, then Another Earth is a terrific sci-fi film.

Yes, the only thing about the movie that looks like science-fiction is its focal image: a planet, presumably identical to Earth, hovering in the sky at what appears a close distance (it’s much larger than the moon). Otherwise, director Mike Cahill and his crew, shooting on a shoestring $150,000 budget, have made a picture that aesthetically reflects its Amerindie conception: digitized handheld cinematography, frequent use of natural lighting, and a largely unknown cast.

Contrary to what one might expect, the mix of the two genres works, as the sci-fi elements exist mostly to raise questions of the viewer, and the perfect way for Cahill and co-writer/actress Brit Marling to explore those questions is through the intimate depiction of character.

Marling stars as Rhoda, a girl admitted to study astrophysics at M.I.T. before such a bright future collapses when she drives drunk after a party, killing a mother and child and putting the father in a coma. When she gets out of jail, several years later, the best job she can find for herself is as janitor of the local high school. She marvels at the planet that sits at Earth’s doorstep (‘Earth II,’ it is dubbed), just as she did immediately before the accident, and hopes to travel there for the obvious reasons: redemption and a fresh start. Conveniently for the movie, there is a contest to be the first to go; in her admissions essay, Rhoda writes of how the Russians considered felons to be cosmonauts because they would be expendable in the event of a snafu.

From there, two interlocked narratives unfold. The first is Rhoda’s: after learning that the man she put in a coma (William Mapother) is now alert and living on his own, she pretends to be a maid looking for work to see what he is like and hopefully earn his forgiveness. (Because she was a minor when she committed the crime, her identity is kept confidential and he doesn’t recognize her.) As she struggles to find the strength to confess her sins while cleaning his reclusive home, they begin to develop a romance that is, needless to say, quite complicated. Secondly, there is the postulated narrative of ‘Earth II,’ invented equally by scientists and citizens: Are the planet and its inhabitants identical to ours? When we travel to Earth II, will our reality diverge from theirs, or did that already happen when we learned of it? Because we are forced to look at these questions from Rhoda’s sympathetic point of view, we consider them from a more human, less theoretical frame that is often missing from science-fiction.

Some will undoubtedly slam Another Earth as just another painfully offbeat indie romance, dressed up in sci-fi clothes, but this is a prejudiced dismissal. Certainly, the movie’s concept and conventional ‘indie’ style could have resulted in such a disaster–and there are a few fleeting moments, such as an early scene in which Rhoda symbolically lays naked in the snow, staring at Earth II until her fingers are frostbitten, that suggest one–but Cahill’s film is so much better than that. Not only does the script expertly weave the drama and otherworldly elements to form a realized allegory, but the lead performance is a real marvel. Marling gives Rhoda weight, wisely not immediately considering the larger allegory in her performance, but instead playing a real human in order to service it most authentically. The character feels gimmicky on paper–how often do you see a girl who is smart enough to get into M.I.T. make such a stupid decision as to drive drunk?–but Marling imbues in her a real soul. Her later interactions with Mapother are pitch-perfect, too — fraught with guilt and longing. It’s not the kind of performance that invites an Oscar nomination, but it may deserve one.

Cahill and Marling reference Plato’s Allegory of the Cave by name in dialogue, and Socrates’ theory on the humans’ interpretation of shadows in that story isn’t a bad parallel to their view of ‘Earth I’ in the film. But ultimately, the grander meaning of Another Earth is up to the viewer, and it’s rife with possibilities to explore in post-showing discussions. Additionally, those who don’t like open-ended thought-pieces should be able to enjoy the human elements all by themselves. As a drama/sci-fi hybrid, Another Earth offers the best of both worlds.

* * *

Another Earth (2011, USA). Produced by Tyler Brodie, Mike Cahill, Hunter Gray, Brit Marling, Paul S. Mezey, Phaedon A. Papadopoulos, and Nicholas Shumaker. Directed by Mike Cahill. Written for the screen by Mike Cahill and Brit Marling. Starring Brit Marling, William Mapother, Matthew-Lee Arlbach, DJ Flava, Meggan Lennon, AJ Diana, Bruce Colbert, Paul S. Mezey, Ana Valle, Jeffrey Goldenberg, Joseph A. Bove, and Jordan Baker. Distributed by Fox Searchlight. Rated PG-13, with a running time of 92 minutes.