Another Earth (2011)

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8hEwMMDtFY

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

In Time (2011)

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdadZ_KrZVw

Dir: Andrew Niccol

Starring: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy

                The director of GATTACA brings us a new high concept science fiction action film. In the future, people are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25. However, when they reach this age a timer starts on their arm. The conceit is that time literally is money and people work to earn time and buy things using time but once the clock on their arm runs out, they die. Justin Timberlake is Will Salas, a man who has to work every day to stay alive. After he saves a rich man, Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer), from gangsters, Henry gives Will over 100 years of time before committing suicide.  Will lives as part of the rich elite before trying to spread the wealth of the world more evenly while being pursued by Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy), a timekeeper, who believes he has murdered Henry for his time.

                The film’s most interesting point is its central idea.  The world is fully thought out and realistic to the premise. There are various setting details which end up becoming part of the plot such as the church which gives out time to poor people and the arm wrestling game where people fight over time and which can end up in death, which help create a realistic world. The dialogue also reflects the world in which there is no money, only time and it is these details which makes it the best and most fun aspect of the film.

                The film casts an eye to the economic problems at the moment. It depicts the poor people living day to day, having to work hard for another days worth of time just to do it all again the next day only to survive. In the mean time the cost of living keeps on rising. However, in the rich districts, the people who have plenty of time, live the good life, and never run because they all have so much time they never need to. The rich keep the prices in the poor districts rising so that they end up running out of time and the rich can stay in time. The recent 99% protests in America and other countries around the world reflect in Will’s attempt to change the economy of the world he lives in, attempting to redistribute the wealth of the rich back to the poor.

                The film runs in to several problems. Some of the acting is awkward, particularly Justin Timberlake, previously so good in The Social Network, and Amanda Seyfried playing the dull rich girl Sylvia Weis. Also as the film opens up, gaping plot holes begin to show which are very difficult to over look. It is a shame that such laziness has occurred in the story telling when the setting has been so well thought out. The romance between Will and Sylvia is obvious and ridiculously quick as she falls madly in love with him after having known him for 4 hours in which time he held a gun to her head, kidnapped her and almost killed her in a car crash. You won’t care about the characters by the end, only hoping that the time really would run out soon.

                The biggest problem with the film is its plotting. For a film about a lack of time it meanders aimlessly. Once Will gains all the time we are never really sure what he intends to do with it, we are led to believe that he will use it for good but the film bumbles around before attempting to make him into a Robin Hood figure which never really works. The film drags on, traipsing about so that your attention fades from the numbers counting down on the characters forearms to the watch strapped around your own wrist. The film has too many loose plot strands. Will is pursued by a gangster from the poor district and the time keepers from the rich district but while the gangster is the more interesting and fun character he is sidelined, only to pop up a couple of times while the focus is kept on the dull timekeepers.

                An interesting concept is wasted in a film populated with dodgy acting, plot holes and directionless plotting. A disappointment when there is such an interesting idea to be used.

2 out of 5 Buttons