Another Earth

I meant to see Cowboys and Aliens this weekend, but the middling reviews it’s getting and the abundance of other real-life fun-things I had the opportunity to do pushed it out of frame. I would have also liked to see Attack the Block, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be showing anywhere near me. Thankfully though the trusty old Landmark E Street cinema was showing another film I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about.

From the title and the promotional photos, most people (including me) would mark this as a sci-fi film in which another planet shows up in the sky, leading to a lot of space travel and physical effects of such close proximity, boring stuff like that. One would also expect that much of the film would take place on this other earth; however, that is not the case at all.

This is a movie about a girl who makes a horrible mistake and spends the majority of the movie trying to fix it. The whole planet thing is related but not the focus. There’s a ton of emotion, heartbreak and awkward love interspersed with a little thought on the implications of alternate timelines and duplicate people, and some brief but beautiful meanderings on the allure of space. It’s a very good story and acted extremely well, except for one moment that just didn’t seem to happen in a way that made much sense.

The camera work is a bit shaky at times but it’s nothing like the Blair Witches and their ilk. The quality of the picture varies with the mood to great effect; sometimes it looks like a home movie and others like a big-budget sci-fi film. The visuals aren’t what make this movie though. It’s definitely the story.