ANOTHER EARTH

BY CHRISTOPHER HASKELL
JANUARY 22, 2012

“Another Earth” is less a film about discovering another planet inhabited by life and more about the connections between specific individuals and finding a way to live with the consequences of poor decisions.

The film opens in New Haven with the bright Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling) getting accepted into MIT. After making the unfortunate decision to drink and drive, Rhoda’s inattentive gaze toward the night sky causes a fatal accident in which she kills a mother and son. The father falls into a coma.

Rhoda does her time and, upon her release, takes a high school janitorial job to “busy” her hands. All the while, the buzz of a second Earth fills the media outlets and the sky. When Rhoda finds that the comatose father, John Burroughs (William Mapother), has come to, she sets out to apologize. Though she cannot bear to come clean, she instead becomes John’s house-cleaner, giving back in the only way she can. Their relationship grows and eventually blossoms just as Rhoda discovers she has won an essay contest to be one of the first people to visit the second Earth.

Key scenes create beautiful moments that pull emotions strategically without effort. Early on, a sequence involving Rhoda’s first sign of emotional healing hits home. Who knew the simple act of buying a box of gummy bears could cause an emotional response? However, seeing Rhoda so happy over such a minimal purchase made my day. So when she runs into an old classmate that seems to be making something of himself and decides against buying the now “insignificant” box of tasty bears, I was heartbroken for her. Empathy becomes a filmmaker’s gift. If I can feel an emotion strong enough to react the same way as the character, the filmmaker has done something extraordinary.

However, the scene that brought me to tears was Rhoda visiting Purdeep (Kumar Pallana), her fellow janitor who takes his own sight and hearing. As she lays with him, signing with her finger on the palm of his hand, that deep connection that she makes with someone shows the extent of her compassion and the boundless capacity of the human heart.

“Another Earth” is a labor of love in Mike Cahill’s second collaboration with actress, producer, and writer Brit Marling. The film is rich with emotion, ripe with stunning visuals, and chock-full of commendable cinematic choices, setting this independent film apart from its peers as recognized at Sundance this past year.