Dir: Mike Cahill
Starring: William
Mapother, Brit Marling
Rhoda
(Brit Marling) is a promising young teenager, about to go off to MIT when she
has an accident due to drink driving after her celebration party. While trying
to see a new planet from her car window she crashes into a family, killing the
mother and child. After spending some time in prison she comes out, depressed
and directionless. She goes to apologise to the husband, John Burroughs (William
Mapother), but loses her nerve and lies about her intentions and they end up
striking up a relationship all the while a mysterious other earth has appeared
in the sky.
The film
has a great premise in the appearance of another planet, which looks like earth,
appearing in the sky. The film is at its most interesting when dealing with the
potential ideas of the planet being a mirror image of earth or perhaps the earth
from a parallel universe. Everyone has wondered what their life could have been
if they had made different choices in life. This is the question that Rhoda is
plagued with; could there be a different Rhoda Williams up there who didn’t ruin
her life and the lives of others? Who fulfilled her potential and now leads the
life she could have had? It is this question that leads her to submit an essay
to try and win a ticket aboard a craft which will fly to the other planet. Rhoda
and John argue over the trip, as John is so enveloped in his own pain and loss
that he only sees the trip as another experience for pain.
Unfortunately
the film doesn’t fully realise the potential of its idea. A scene where a
scientist attempts to make contact with the other earth and ends up talking to
the other version of herself is both exciting and scary and more scenes like
this would have been welcome. The film instead chooses to focus on the forming relationship
between Rhoda and John and the tension that Rhoda will eventually have to come
clean about who she really is. It is a well handled and played relationship but
it is not anything original. The film could have been two films with the potentially
better and more interesting one being the science fiction film which took the
premise of another earth and attempted to realise its full potential, and the
other being about the relationship between Rhoda and John. You end up wishing
they’d been able to go for the bigger science fiction film rather than what
they ended up with.
A competent
film with able performances from all and a great final shot but the film fails
to capitalise on its interesting and ambitious premise, instead sticking too
firmly in an unoriginal relationship. An interesting watch, but pretty forgettable.
3 out of 5 Buttons
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