Review of Another Earth (2011) by Mike C — 04 May 2012

This may be tear-evoking brilliant. Not that I got that while watching it. I did enjoy it, and Brit Marling is just as much of a darling as anyone ever has been on screen. But the story is different, and the ending is a little vague. Reading some explanations online...no wonder this won some awards at Sundance. You really could not ask for more from an independent film.

I have to start with Marling. She's not much of a star but has a few credits, including a 2004 documentary with the same Cahill who co-wrote and directed this. I didn't know she helped write the movie, and her trivia says she turned down a Goldman Sachs job to pursue writing/movies. Damn, what a girl. She absolutely steals the show as a pretty young woman trying to overcome a mistake she made four years earlier. At times, she is pretty beyond words. Hollywood is full of attractive women, but few can be so naturally pretty. In doing so, and partly because it is her character that makes her pretty, you can fully empathize with her. It's just damn good stuff all around.

The story is an odd one: on one hand, you have a somewhat cliched story someone trying to overcome the past. As a teen, she kills a pregnant wife and young boy while drunk driving. Upon returning to the free world, she struggles and becomes a janitor, attempts suicide, and ends up cleaning the house of the man who's family she killed. Most of that has been done before in one way or another. The odd part of the movie is the other story: the revelation of Earth II, a seeming mirror of our planet. Though it is unclear just what is on Earth II, the going theory is that this planet evolved in exactly the same way as the earth we know...until the moment they became visible to one another. Then, who knows? And there is the artistic liberty to create what could be a truly brilliant finish.

I sometimes struggled with the pace of the movie, but again, Marling is so damn effective I wasn't going to turn it off. And I hate all the conveniences...I won't get into some spoilers, but they are unlikely albeit necessary to further the story. At the same time, this is precisely what I like about independent movies. You don't know where it's going to go. It doesn't all make sense at first glance. It doesn't necessarily have to tie up nicely. But I think this one does. And in that case, it exceeds my expectations of an indie movie.