December 12, 2011
One fateful night, on the day a new planet is found approaching the earth's atmosphere, young student Rhoda Williams causes a car crash that will change her life forever. After spending four years in prison, she returns home to find herself responsible for the death of a man's wife and child.
Another Earth is a reference to the new planet, Earth 2: a near exact replica of our world. It is present in nearly every shot of the film, following the troubled Rhoda, played with great passion by co-writer Brit Marling, and looming over the rural house of the now reclusive and depressed John Burroughs, the man whose life she ruined. Earth 2 illuminates his isolated house, as Rhoda nervously knocks on his door to finally confront him and apologise about what she did, but then ends up lying about the purpose of her visit.
She begins working as a maid, cleaning his house and helping him deal with the loss of his loved ones while keeping her identity a secret. Gradually, the discovery of life on Earth 2, the idea that there are duplicate versions of themselves in space, brings them closer together. And ultimately, as it becomes possible to win a ticket for a trip to Earth 2, John and Rhoda must face their past and themselves, both metaphorically and literally.
For both characters the new-found planet is a symbol of life, death and their consciousness of what happened on that night four years ago. The film is very careful about not being an exploration of it's science-fiction elements, but instead uses the mysterious planet as a backdrop for a character-driven drama and a meditation on the different possibilities of life. Director Mike Cahill, who shot the film himself with a hand-held camera in a semi-documentary way, is able to effectively enhance Rhoda's feelings of guilt and John's lack of purpose by confronting them with a planet and the frightening-yet-fascinating possibility of an alternate reality, a reality in which the accident never happened.
Another Earth is a reference to the new planet, Earth 2: a near exact replica of our world. It is present in nearly every shot of the film, following the troubled Rhoda, played with great passion by co-writer Brit Marling, and looming over the rural house of the now reclusive and depressed John Burroughs, the man whose life she ruined. Earth 2 illuminates his isolated house, as Rhoda nervously knocks on his door to finally confront him and apologise about what she did, but then ends up lying about the purpose of her visit.
She begins working as a maid, cleaning his house and helping him deal with the loss of his loved ones while keeping her identity a secret. Gradually, the discovery of life on Earth 2, the idea that there are duplicate versions of themselves in space, brings them closer together. And ultimately, as it becomes possible to win a ticket for a trip to Earth 2, John and Rhoda must face their past and themselves, both metaphorically and literally.
For both characters the new-found planet is a symbol of life, death and their consciousness of what happened on that night four years ago. The film is very careful about not being an exploration of it's science-fiction elements, but instead uses the mysterious planet as a backdrop for a character-driven drama and a meditation on the different possibilities of life. Director Mike Cahill, who shot the film himself with a hand-held camera in a semi-documentary way, is able to effectively enhance Rhoda's feelings of guilt and John's lack of purpose by confronting them with a planet and the frightening-yet-fascinating possibility of an alternate reality, a reality in which the accident never happened.
