Another Earth Review

I've come to a conclusion in the last couple of weeks: I fucking love Brit Marling. I've seen her in three movies in the last two weeks: Sound of My Voice, Arbitrage, and now Another Earth. Even in the not-so-great Arbitrage, she managed to shine. And Another Earth was no exception.

Another Earth tells the story of a 17 year old student, Rhoda (Marling), who crosses paths with a composer from Yale university, John Burroughs (played by William Mapother), on the night that a second earth is discovered in our galaxy. I hesitate to say anymore about the plot, because I would hate to spoil it for anyone, but just think of it as a vaguely science fiction film. Slightly more so than something like Never Let Me Go, but not real heavy sci-fi. I knew absolutely nothing about this film going in, I pretty much only saw it because I knew Brit Marling was in it. Don't judge. I was honestly surprised at how great the movie was.

The script for this movie, written by Marling and director Mike Cahill, was nothing super impressive, but managed to have a couple of really deep conversations and scenes in it. A couple of parts that stood out as really well written were: Rhoda's essay, Rhoda's monologue about the Russian cosmonaut, and a scene late in the film between Rhoda and John (spoilers.) Other than those few scenes, and a couple of lines smattered throughout the film, the script was still alright. The concept of the film was definitely the best part, it was very thought provoking and really touched on a lot of deep subjects. I was really impressed by how well these characters were written/developed. I really felt for both of the main characters, which is usually something I don't really say (yea, I'm a heartless dick.) There was also some great use of voice over dialogue in between major scenes, having professors and scientists talk about Earth 2, which I felt added to the atmosphere of the whole film. Overall, I was pretty impressed with this script.

The direction for this movie was...alright. I hesitate to say that it was great, because, while I did enjoy a majority of the way scenes were shot and framed, etc, I thought there were a handful of scenes that were trying to be too artsy. I usually don't mind the occasional artsy shot (as long as it isn't the entire movie, like Tree of Life) but these ones seemed to jar me out of the flow of the film.  They didn't work in the context of the film, and definitely didn't fit into this body of work. One of the few scenes that really stood out in the movie as amazing was: when Rhoda was standing by the ocean looking up at Earth 2. The shot was so perfectly framed and beautifully encapsulated exactly what this film was (kind of) about. I see a lot of potential from Mike Cahill, and I'm excited to see more feature films from him.

The strongest part of this film, to me, were (surprise, surprise) the performances. I thought Brit Marling and William Mapother were really great together (and separately, in Marling's case.) I thought they both brought a lot of emotion to the table and really made these characters come to life for me. Mapother's performance, especially, made me feel so heartbroken for this man. I was always pulling for him throughout the entire film. Conversely, I always felt terrible for Marling's character and was dreading what she was going to have to do. Both performances elicited a huge response from me, and I felt bad for both of them, but on completely different levels.

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To sum it up, I really enjoyed this film. It may be a little bit slower than most people will enjoy, but I didn't find that it dragged too much. I was really impressed by almost everything that was put on the screen before me, and most importantly, I was kept entertained. These characters are really well written and portrayed. If you appreciate great acting and nothing more, then you should definitely see this film.

Writing: 7/10

Directing: 7.5/10

Acting: 8.5/10

Pacing: 6.5/10

Rewatchability: 7/10

Score: 7.3/10