Review: Another Earth (2011)

Starring:
                  Brit Marling, William Mapother, Jordan Baker, Robin Lord Taylor, Flint Beverage, Kumar Pallana and Richard Berendzen.

Directed By:
                         Mike Cahill.


Review:
                 There are movies that may not seems so good when you watch the first trailer of it, they don't impress you or seems like watchable. But when you do, some of them just blows your mind like Another Earth. This movie reminded me of that small sci fi movie Monsters, which once again was good. Another Earth came across as a movie with superb imagination and a work of art. I was impressed, mesmerized and just superbly absorbed in the movie it instantly connected with me. Now this is not a science fiction or visual effects driven movie at all but that aspect is used metaphorically to help the story, and it does help it very much. This movie is about a girl named Rhoda Williams played by the newcomer Brit Marling, she is a high school student recently accepted to MIT, while driving to her home after celebration drunk, she listens on radio the news about a similar planet like Earth to be visible in the sky. As she looks out of her car window to take a look at the new planet, she slams her car with a stopped car. John Burroughs played by William Mapother goes into coma and his child and wife dies there. Being a minor her identity is not revealed and she serves her prison sentence. When Rhoda finished her prison sentence, instead of going to MIT she takes job of a school janitor and becomes completely quiet, isolated and wants to clean things which in a way is her psychological response to what happened or what she did. One day as she hears some more stories about the approaching mirror planet, she decides to visit John's house where she might asks for his forgiveness but she freaks out a bit and instead pretends to be a maid for a new maid service who are offering their free day trails.

                   So slowly they develops a bond as they both are quite creative and genius conversation wise and gradually sparks in a more romantic relation with John still not knowing that Rhoda is the reason why his life turned like this. Rhoda then enters into a essay competition where the winner will be the first civilian to travel to that another earth, your own self might have not done things that you did is the reason she is willing to go but what happens after is one of the best moments of the movie. Little was i expecting but it turned out really good, breakthrough performance by both director and the actress without a doubt. This movie will remind you of Melancholia but that is where approaching planet will end every life possible on earth, sparring everyone out of their misery once and for all. Here, the approaching planet may give another chance, another chance for survival, a fresh and new start, a chance to undo some of your most regretful mistakes in short this planet will not end your life but will give you another one. Now this is the most creative idea that was used in a movie last year, superbly original and it works fantastic.

                   I thought Brit Marling did a fantastic job here, being a newcomer and having the ability to express so much without speaking is just superb and something that even most of the established actors lack. This movie is being overlooked, people forgot about how good it is and so did they forgot to nominate her in the breakthrough or debut actors categories because believe me, she deserves it. For a indie movie and with hardly any budget to really show the sci fi elements in a quite satisfactory way is brilliant, cinematography was stunning with a perfect use of natural lighting. The entire movie has quite a haunting and isolated depressed feeling that it needed. Another Earth expresses itself quite easily without any problems or hesitations, director know what he is doing and what he is trying to tell us through this movie and so does the actors. It may be too slow moving and boring for certain audience but for me it was good. It does however feel a bot dragging towards the end but overall a perfectly told story.

Grade: B+