I'm a cantankerous old goat, rarely moved to hyperbole, but I was simply enthralled by this film: totally absorbed throughout, except when I found myself chuckling giddily at the realisation I was watching a profoundly brilliant piece of cinema. The last time I had that sensation was in 1991 when I saw Silence of the Lambs. Another Earth is an utterly different film, but in its own way it offers, just as completely, everything that this medium of film promises and so rarely delivers.In Another Earth, a new planet appears, close by, in the sky. In fact, it is another Earth, identical to our own. Thereafter, Earth II precipitates, frames and propels a delicate and desolate gravitational attraction between two irreparably damaged people. Irreparably damaged because the only thing which will heal them is the only thing that cannot: each other. Another Earth explores that relationship and, with the aid of the planet-sized metaphor, the ever-present path-dependency of our short, brutish existences.
This is an independent film: budgets are tight and much is shot, Blair Witch style, on a hand-held camcorder. The blown-out exposures, over-sharpened lines and noisy, boxy sound give the picture the feel of a student project. But science fiction with production values at zero is like silent film: if forces you to watch, and undistracted by dazzling computer generated images and 7.1 digital surround sound, you are drawn fully into the ingenious screenplay and the human resonances it explores.
Rhoda Williams is about to go to college. She's smart: she'll be an MIT astrophysics undergraduate, and she's handsome: not a million miles from a young Laura Dern. You might call her pretty, but she's by no means saccharine sweet. She is, however, tipsy: intoxicated not just with the promise of the path on which her young life is taking her, but with a little too much champagne. She gets in her car to go home. Rhoda takes her eyes off the road and gazes at this new Earth.
There is, of course, a ghastly accident. It brings Rhoda together with John Burroughs, a composer and a devoted husband and father who is the only survivor when Rhoda's car ploughs into his at a pedestrian crossing. Thus are their characters brought together and simultaneously flung apart by the centripetal force of their own damaged psychologies to the most isolated, remotest reaches of human space.
When John Burroughs emerges from his coma his reaction to his family's death is, well, to burrow: he retreats to the huge, draughty and decaying New Haven house, to drink, wither and die. He compounds his downward spiral with clutter: rubbish, bottles and piles of trash: the detritus of his life are the physical manifestations of his disintegrating psyche.
Rhoda emerges, after a similar period, from prison. Her spiral seems as destructive and hopeless as John's; she withdraws into herself and hatches various plans to escape the here-and-now altogether. Her more benign attempt is to enter an essay competition to win a seat on a probe to Earth II being organised by an Australian entrepreneur (yes, I found this odd too: perhaps this is a parallel universe where the men from down under won the space race). Rhoda also tries more damaging means of putting an end to her suffering, too.
While morosely visiting the scene of the accident Rhoda observes John Burroughs doing the same. He knows little of the details of the accident and nothing of Rhoda. She resolves at least to apologise to him, gets as far as his front door and, human frailty being what it is, fluffs her lines. Instead, she makes an excuse by dint of which she winds up in a distant, but ongoing interaction with Burroughs anyway.
Thence commences the tragic, and delicate, convergence of these lonely orbits. All the while that missing admission, like Earth II in the sky, looms ever larger.
Their burgeoning relationship, we know, is as flawed by human weakness as was the accident, and yet here are two people, with no alternative means of recovery and who offer each other great redemption, but only so long as there is this awful lie between them.
The film unfolds carefully, slowly and wondrously, without a false step throughout its length.
When I emerged from the cinema a giant gibbous moon hung low over the Soho skyline like another world, as if even the universe itself was pitching in to Cahill's metaphorical scheme. It followed me home, slinking behind the trees and between buildings, always there, watching my every step. It's still there now.
Beautiful, and profound.
Olly Buxton
Buy Another Earth (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) (2011) Now
Why didn't this film do better at the box office? Was it the marketing or, was it was just too cerebral for most of the movie going public. Perhaps the trailer gave the impression of unremitting and unrewarded suffering. In the last case, be assured that there is true and well deserved redemption that comes with a twist at the end. Whatever the problem was, the fault was not the film. But, it prevented this movie from drawing an audience in numbers it should have. And that is a shame. Its failure at the box office will further dampen the spirits and limit the opportunities of truly original film makers. Don't let this happen. Buy this movie and reward intelligent, creative and thought provoking films that will provide a welcome relief to the normal mindless Hollywood fare.Read Best Reviews of Another Earth (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) (2011) Here
brit marling is like a dream, and the movie is more like her beautiful but disturbed interruption upon wake: we, the viewers are watching her story unfold. this isn't like an ordinary 'movie', set so differently from real life, or that the actors are separated from their trailers and coffee breaks, to the players and costumes they portray. this is like watching a woman, behind a raspberry bush, following her as she walks through life, brilliant, suffocated, ashamed, gracious. she's the most beautiful, kind-hearted, warm-intentioned 'criminal' i've ever watched upon the screen and thus the most realistic. i've rarely been able to hold a piece of the actor's heart, and intentions, into my own personal life i've, sure, been able to escape into brad pitt's biceps in 'fight club', been thrown off guard by keira's rosy cheeks and beauty in 'atonement', wished my life could be as dangerous and wonderful as the scoundrels in gregg araki's films, but i've rarely felt as approachable to those characters. if i saw them in real life, i would most likely feel fat, ugly, unhip, unmodelesque, un-actory. brit is someone i Want to meet, be friends with, look at, despite her looks or actions. she isn't even acting, in a sense. she's connecting with another persona, but using her words, glimpses, thoughts, like she would as if making a present for her mum, presenting a graduation speech, listening to a friend as she reaches out in tears... she's all about connecting, and honesty. she's just like you and i if we could care less about weight, or impressing our parents deciding to be in a film and use a new kind of media for discovering about the poetry of life, science, space, people, pain... It's one of those films that will be overlooked, turned down, judged voraciously, but only because it isn't immediate, but it is also the most captivating piece i have watched in a long time. it wasn't uncomfortable, cliche, frustrating, nor depressing for me. it was inspiring to see her struggle, heart breaking to know i could be in that same situation and learn the same road lose my friends, want to die, feel honestly dis-tached from family, and take haven in others stories rather than my own. it was breath taking to see so many metaphors and music put together the cello playing every time brit entered the scene, tumbling on rocks, or the piano and cello chaotically together when she made love with the other. or the way the first human she saw after being set free... was a man in an alien costume. the irony. or how the astrophysicist chose to speak to the alternate Her from planet 2, asking about Astro Strawberries and when she was 7, instead of the terrified or panicked beacons that governmental employees are known to embark, when speaking to extraterrestrial forms. it's also infuriating how this got a 64 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and that the general public found it dull, repetitive, and over-dramaticized, where i found it fresh, completely realistic, and clenching.the kind of movie where blowing your nose or taking off your shoe a three second act that removes you from the screen was enough to make me rewind, and capture those seconds lost. the kind where after watching, i told everyone i knew in proximity all of my roommates and my friend that day later, to 'watch this movie, no matter what'. the kind that isn't even a movie, really, but a piece that i was fortunate enough to see, that didn't use gimmicks or flash to attract me, and is what movies should Aspire to be.
it's also one that will be a classic, cult or general, in years to come. the kind that isn't favored by the public or critics initially, but is well-traveled down the road, for being something new, broad, sweeping, and challenging. the kind where you Want to be in the main character's shoes, be gawked at by the same brother, make love to the same man, throw up elegantly on the same train toilet, stare at the same flock of birds, and tuck the same lock of hair behind the ear, but don't want to, because only she can be as beautiful and honest, as herself.
please give this another thought. at least appreciate it for it's power to invoke a primal emotion, rather than immediate excitement and then forgetfulness.
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This is a beautiful movie. I simply cannot get inside the heads of those who give this movie negative reviews. It is a beautiful concept, executed with sere, tender restraint. The primary character, Rhoda, is drawn and acted with authenticity. Brit Marling is phenomenal. If you like good movies, you will like this film.Save 27% Off
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