B O C H E N S K I M A T T B Y W O R D S
ike Cahill’s Another Earth offers a fractured reflection of what might have been. Not in its story of duel fates and uncertain futures, but in harking back to a science-fiction cinema that took its cues from the expansive ideas of Carl Sagan and Arthur C Clarke rather than the expensive thrills of George Lucas. On this other Earth, the genre remained a crucible of ideas, with Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky its heroes. Another Earth may not stand comparison with the work of these masters, but this confident debut lends its weight to the renaissance of (post-)modern sci-fi. Showcasing a keen intelligence and understated style, its most obvious contemporary point of reference is Duncan Jones’ Moon. And yet, like Jones’ debut, Another Earth is very obviously a first film – with both the energy and the inexperience that suggests. It’s an ambitious but flawed drama that boldly announces Cahill’s arrival – not his greatness.
Late night. A house party. Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling, who co-wrote the script with Cahill) is celebrating her acceptance into MIT. As she drives home, the radio announces a miraculous discovery – a new planet in the sky bearing all the hallmarks of an Earth-like ability to sustain life. But in the same breath of discovery comes tragedy, an accident that will alter the course of both Rhoda’s life and her victims. Picking up the pieces several years later, two narratives will play out. As Rhoda is drawn irresistibly to widower John (William Mapother), driven perhaps by compassion, but more likely by guilt, contact is made with the new planet, dubbed ‘Earth 2’, and an incredible, impossible revelation occurs. These two threads – one, a microscopic study of individual lives in stasis; the other, a civilisation-scale story of infinite possibilities – will interweave to create an icy tableau of alienation and broken dreams.
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