Never has a title of a film been
more misleading than Mike Cahill's Another
Earth. The title itself led me to believe I would be watching a sci-fi film
that delved into the perils of meeting visitors from a planet similar to our
own. Instead, the focus was centered on the redemption of a young woman who
inadvertently caused the deaths of a man's wife and child.
Another
Earth imagines a world where there are two Earths. Aside from the obvious
scientific improbabilities of such, the other planet is supposed to be
identical in that we have different versions of ourselves there. That means as
I type this, I might very well be doing the same, or something different over
there. The movie's biggest flaw isn't the lack of science fiction as a theme
but the actors themselves. Many movies have been made on a shoestring budget,
but more money was needed to convey the message here.
In a nutshell Another Earth played out very much like a bell curve. It struggled
heavily in the beginning, recovered with an excellent middle act that had a
near flawless climax, and then sadly concluded in an unflattering fashion. I
think the best way to edit the film would be to completely cut the pseudo-intellectual
statements of differing ideologies and take out any mention of another planet.
Extreme? Yes. But in the end entirely necessary.
