Another Earth

Starring: Brit Marling; William Mapother.
Director: Mike Cahill

CELESTIAL concepts generally tend to be heavy on the mind – about as weighty as a planet.
Another Earth begins with images of a big planet – the largest one in our solar system as it turns out – Jupiter, with a voiceover explaining where our protagonist, Rhoda (Brit Marling), comes from.
Her journey begins one drunken night when she drives while intoxicated and hits another car, killing a composer’s (William Mapother) pregnant wife and five-year old boy.
Four years later and Rhoda, fresh out of the slammer, is hoping to be one of the lucky few to go on a voyage of discovery to the other Earth while she takes up a job as a cleaner both at a nearby school and also at the composer’s, John Burroughs, house who has fallen into drink and is consumed by grief.
The horrific incident at the start of the film happens on the same night as Earth has a galactic visitor and it doesn’t take long for us to work out (the clue is in the title) that what is up there is the same as down here.
But how similar is it, or could it be? And that is the underlying message that continues throughout this film.
It is a psychological question that requires a lot of pathos, and unfortunately this film has a lot of it.
Science-fiction theory is a wonderful genre in films and one that when it is done right can be really entertaining, when it’s done wrong it can be boring.
This year there has been several films that are now included in that canon, The Adjustment Bureau and Source Code being possibly the best and certainly most popular for 2011.
Another Earth is a great stab from debut director-screenwriter Mike Cahill who is joined by Marling on the penning credits.
But it is just too full of itself.
It is clear that Marling and Cahill are two very intelligent and well-read young people but Another Earth could easily have been cut in half.
There were far too many pretentious shots and long camera shots of characters gazing off into the sunset, fingers tapping on wood, quiet moments of reflection.
But if the editing was as strict as the overall craftsmanship then the running time would struggle to get past the hour.
Moments such as when a NASA scientist makes first contact and the subsequent confusion are nail-biting. Similarly a beautiful moment with a musical saw shows that Cahill has great strength.
But the concept of the film is something that would be better suited to a bigger budget – it is drowned by the ordinariness of the world that surrounds it.