Welcome to the rebirth of smart science fiction at the cineplex.
For years, movie goers had to make do with genre scraps, movies where the science in the fiction was little more than gristle.
Consider “Battlefield Earth” the movement’s recent nadir.
Then, “District 9, “Moon” and “Source Code” gave us optimism that the genre was roaring back to life. Even last year’s “Never Let Me Go” treated science fiction principles with respect as it lulled audiences into a deep, relaxing slumber.
“Another Earth” adds a new chapter to this refreshing turnaround. Brit Marling stars as a woman whose personal troubles are magnified by the appearance of a new planet in the sky. It’s an existential drama with science fused to the mainframe, a combination which elevates a story with an otherwise transparent arc.
Young, attractive Rhoda (Marling, who co-wrote the film) is preparing to enter college when she drinks too much one night and gets into a car crash. The accident kills a mother and her child and puts the other car’s driver, the family’s patriarch, in a coma.
Rhoda survives more or less intact but is hauled off to jail for driving under the influence. Her prison release four years later segues into a new realm of self punishment. She starts stalking the driver, now fully recovered from the accident. Perhaps he found a way to deal with the tragedy during her incarceration and will accept her apology.
But John (William Mapother) clearly hasn’t emotionally recovered. His house is in disarray and he spends his days alone and disheveled, a bottle always within reach.
Rhoda decides to offer him her services as a house cleaner, never letting on she is the woman who destroyed the life he once had. Her weekly cleaning visits start a cautious friendship between the two, a bond complicated not only by their intertwined destinies but the sight of a second earth which has appeared on the horizon.
“Another Earth” would be a sharply realized tale of healing even without that new planet looming on the horizon. Instead, the notion of a new Earth mirroring our own grants the story an extra dimension, a chance to examine the human condition in ways we don’t anticipate.
Marling, whose tranquil beauty should serve her well once Hollywood comes calling, gives a properly bruised performance as a woman whose one mistake shatters much more than just her own future. Co-writer/director Mike Cahill keeps the focus on Rhoda, not the celestial miracle in the sky, allowing the story’s humanity to shine through without a filter.
“Another Earth” never dazzle, nor does it feel the need to do so. It uses science to measure the resiliency of the human spirit. Isn’t that what the better films in the genre end up doing?
(Photo: Brit Marling co-wrote and stars in “Another Earth,” a sensitive science fiction feature which gives audiences plenty to mull over about their own lives. Credits: Courtesy Fox Searchlight Pictures TM and © 2011 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.)
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I would include ‘I Am Legend’ on the list, personally. And I’ve been wondering about the release status of this apparently intriguing film as well.
“Never Let Me Go” was absolutely terrible and predictable even without reading the source material (which HAD to be better than the flick).
I hope “Another Earth” isn’t another “fever-dream” film like the 1950’s “Twilight Zone’s” episode was where a woman was burning up with fever as the earth was plungling into Sol only to find out after her fever breaks earth had escaped Sol’s gravity and was drifting into frozen space.
I’m tired of been-there-done-that science fiction flicks. “Moon” was the last good science fiction film I have seen.
Plus (poorly spelled “plungling” aside), let’s not even go there with a planet the size of Earth in Earth orbit (or even close proximity) along with (I am assuming) the Moon still in orbit. I can not even begin to imagine the climate chaos as the gravitation pull of another large planet would have on our climate, oceans, and life. Just saying…
“District 9″, “Moon” and “Source Code” are some of my favorite films from the last few years. Even though District 9 was a bit predictable, it’s gung-ho depiction of Wincus’s transformation, and Sharlto Copely’s performance were fabulous. I would add Inception to your list.
“It uses science to measure the resiliency of the human spirit. Isn’t that what the better films in the genre end up doing?”
That’s what the best written science fiction films usually try to do. There’s long been a disconnect between the literary and cinematic science fiction worlds, with the former frequently (and often unfairly) disparaging the latter for not living up to the genre’s potential as a medium to provoke thought in its audience. If you look at the history of science fiction movies, you’ll see it’s full of peaks and lows in terms of periods of quality. The best sci-fi films of the 50s were made from 1951-1956, when they were aimed at adults; most of the well-known classics of the decade came from its first five or six years. By the middle of the decade, they started to shift towards younger audiences who had been the primary ticket holders for such films, and with a few notable exceptions (such as The Incredible Shrinking Man) they became increasingly juvenile and decreased in overall quality as the decade petered out. 2001:A Space Odyssey revived the genre, and there was a brief period where intelligent science fiction films (or at least ones with pretenses to relevance) were made, but none of them made any sort of immediate impact that would help makes these films a mainstay. Star Wars (and to a lesser degree, Alien) changed the rules; now the studios were willing to finance science fiction films as long as they were perceived as being profitable, which meant they basically had to be action-adventure films, thrillers or horror-science fiction hybrids. Consequentially, while the 80s were a financially lucrative decade as far as science fiction was concerned, most of the movies were of sub par quality. Beginning with Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys in 1995, there seems to be a greater willingness among those holding the purse strings to finance thoughtful science fiction films that don’t fall into readily-identifiable audience-friendly categories; how long the current trend continues remains to be seen, but for now, I’m trying to enjoy what’s being put out as much as I can.