Another Earth (2011)
Directed by Mike Cahill
On the night a duplicate Earth is discovered in the solar system, the lives of a young woman and an accomplished composer become tragically connected after a fatal accident.
13 connections found
View:
13 films that influenced Another Earth
What critics say influenced Another Earth
The movie is as thought-provoking, in a less profound way, than Tarkovsky's "Solaris," another film about a sort of parallel Earth.
One of the most poignant moments in Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris comes when the cosmonaut Snaut remarks that, “We don't want any more worlds, only a mirror to see our own.”
There are no little green men and no special effects to speak of, but the looming presence of that planet and its possibilities turns Another Earth into a metaphysical treat, with influences that range from Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Double Life of Veronique and Blue to Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris.
First-time director Mike Cahill's "Another Earth" suggests Andrei Tarkovsky's "Solaris" by way of Aaron Katz.
The third is the discovery by space explorers of another world where we meet our doubles: this is what happens in a mysterious fashion in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Tarkovsky's Solaris and more explicitly in Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (aka Doppelgänger), the 1969 venture into live-action film‑making by the Thunderbirds team.
Rhoda and the audience learn about this "mirror Earth" via the patter of a hip-hop deejay on a car radio; this is a beautiful example of the film's recurring success in conveying important information in believably mundane ways, without the need for science-fiction special effects or sequences with scientists or feds, as one might find in a studio film: I'm thinking in particlar of 1969's "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun," a more traditional if admirably "Twilight Zone"-esque science-fiction film about the discovery of a duplicate Earth.
It at least dates back to Ernst Lubitsch’s Broken Lullaby (1932), where the French soldier who killed a German family’s son visits the family and accidentally becomes a second son to them.
Another Earth’s plot suggests the recent Rabbit Hole (another fatal accident and sympathetic perp), and exploits to ingenious effect physicist Brian Greene's rather thrilling theory of multiple universes.
The buzz: The notion of an unusual relationship between the perpetrator and victim of an accidental tragedy has certainly been done before, most recently in last year’s “Rabbit Hole.”
The simplicity is refreshing, and though the at-times theatrical two-hander structure mines a similar vein of grief exploration as last year's Rabbit Hole , it makes no attempt at mastery over the subject.
The simple story has overtones of the recent Rabbit Hole.
(Think " Reservation Road " and " Rabbit Hole .")
Advertisement
The intimate telling puts "Another Earth" in the tradition of humanistic sci-fi movies like John Carpenter 's "Starman" and John Sayles "Brother From Another Planet."
There are no little green men and no special effects to speak of, but the looming presence of that planet and its possibilities turns Another Earth into a metaphysical treat, with influences that range from Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Double Life of Veronique and Blue to Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris.
The parallel-universes concept is fine, but the bad-idea-relationship plot feels like it was nicked from “Monster’s Ball.”
As John, William Mapother (2006's " World Trade Center ") falls not into the shadows of his co-star, but nevertheless plays second fiddle to her, essaying with quiet dignity and an underlying bitterness a man who has lost just about everything he ever cared about and needs to find something new to believe in.
Advertisement
Despite the films’ science-fiction leanings, the 1998 battle for box office supremacy between Deep Impact and Armageddon this is not.
But that night, Rhoda was driving drunk and hit a family car head on, killing John Burroughs's (William Mapother, "In the Bedroom," TV's 'Lost') wife and son while she gazing up at the sky and "Another Earth."