‘Another Earth’ Reflects on Nature of Existence

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Rating: 5.0/5.0

CHICAGO – “Another Earth” is a delicate movie. The emotions, atmosphere and philosophy feels like the whole thing could shatter at any moment, that’s how balanced it is on the edge of tomorrow. Through Brit Marling’s screenplay and performance, the very nature of who we are is questioned.

The film uses a monumental cosmic event as the backdrop for the pure tragedy of seeking a forgiveness that probably can never come. By reflecting another earth back at us, it also serves as a mirror to reality. How would we react if the nature of our existence is proven to be a reflective illusion? Would we become brave and bold, or collapse into a fetal position, desperate to get back to the egg?

Rhoda (Brit Marling) is a happy-go-lucky 17 year old, on her way to MIT on a astrophysics scholarship. She over celebrates her good fortune at a party, on the same night that scientists have found a new planet in the solar system. She drives home drunk, mesmerized by the little blue dot she sees above her. This distraction makes her miss a stop light, and she plows into another car.

Inside the other car is John, a musician and father. He suffers from head trauma that puts him into a coma, and his wife and child are dead. The trial against Rhoda is swift and she is sentenced to prison. John never knows who perpetuated the accident, for his prolonged coma and sealed court records (because Rhoda is a minor) obscures the identity. Meanwhile, the blue dot in the sky is coming closer to earth and becomes more defined.

Rhoda and John: Brit Marling and William Mapother in ‘Another Earth’ Photo credit: © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp

Rhoda is released from her sentence after four years, then isolates herself in her parent’s home. She takes menial work as a school janitor, and shows interest in a billionaire’s plan to sponsor ordinary citizens on a manned mission to the new planet. The orb now resembles earth, and first communications to it reveal some shocking revelations.

Rhoda decides to reach out to her accident victim John, now embittered and holed up in his home. Pretending to be a maid, she infiltrates his life, cleaning up the physical and emotional mess. The approaching earth doesn’t distract from this redemptive mission, and their togetherness sparks a hope of love.

There is so much going on is this charged environment within the film. The approaching earth has a Twilight Zone feel to it, in the best way, for its magnification also intensifies the feelings of John and Rhoda. The two stories, the new planet and the coupling, are on parallel planes, and each event has ramifications that can be both spiritually forgiving or devastating to the psyche. The scenarios are spectacularly creative, and unfolds in its own deliberate time, carefully mapping a narrative path towards a special destiny.

The performances are right on, even down to the supporting roles that impact the main characters. Brit Marling delivers a star-making, subtle persona in Rhoda, projecting her spirit like a cracked china doll. She is still young and beautiful, but has been crushed by the guilt of her circumstance and is hardened by real prison time. There is a stunning scene where she seeks almost to purify her black soul, stripping naked in a white field of fallen snow. Even in her self-induced assignment to make John’s life better, she is still brittle and can break at any moment.

William Mapother is moving beyond his more famous cousin’s shadow (Tom Cruise) with a precise performance as John. Every crevice of his bearing is filled with drugged grief, as he must maintain a regiment of medication after his head trauma. He barely seems to notice Rhoda at first, and begins their connection by somehow finding that first molecule of emotional response within his soul, which had been deadened since the accident. The transition is deftly and naturally handled by the actor, and his small victories are larger because of the way he evolves the character.

Director Mike Cahill (he co-wrote the screenplay with Marling) handles all these parallel stories with a cool balance, particularly impressive were the TV news reports of the cosmic event. They had the proper gravitas, showing Rhoda’s family watching the unfolding disclosures with the same attention as we watched September 11th. The flickering images from the tube were perfectly authentic, and reveals the revelations about the other earth in real time, so both the movie characters and us are shocked simultaneously.

The World Awaits: Brit Marling Contemplates ‘Another Earth’ Photo credit: © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp

The other earth, bearing down on “our” planet, is not foreboding or scary, it hangs in the sky with a fragile beauty. It positions itself close to the moon, so that to the observer they might be viewing themselves from outer space. This is the genius of Another Earth, that in the mirrored image we may look at ourselves in an entirely different way, more secure that up there – and down here – we’re not alone, nor lonely.

This spirituality, often tied with religion, is soul cleansing. The characters of Another Earth allows this purity to wash over them. And while they seek forgiveness for the nature of their sins, the other earth reflects back at them, directing them to ask the right questions, and rewarding them by delivering the right answers.

By PATRICK McDONALD Senior Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com [email protected]