Another Earth (2011)

Seventeen year old Connecticut resident Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling) gets drunk at a party celebrating her acceptance to MIT, on the drive home Rhoda runs her car head on into the vehicle of composer/music professor John Burroughs (William Mapother) severely injuring him and killing his pregnant wife and five year old son. Her identity sealed because of her age Rhoda is sentenced to stay in a juvenile facility until she turns 21, when she is released into the care of her family. Profoundly effected by the lives she took the bright, once ambitious young women takes a job as a janitor at her old high school, and seems to be seeking some kind of penance. It is in this spirit that she visits the home of Professor Burroughs, with the intent of apologizing for the pain she caused him, but at the last minute she chickens out and pretends to be from a cleaning service. To her surprise Burroughs hires her to clean his place weekly, and the two emotionally wounded people find themselves growing increasing close, something that can not end will when Burroughs discovers Rhoda's role in the crash the killed his family.

All of this could be interesting enough to sustain a film on its own but director and co-writer (along with Marling) Mike Cahill adds a unique twist to this indie outing. The night of the fateful car accident Rhoda, whose love in life since early childhood has been astronomy, is distracted in her driving trying to make a out a new planet that the radio says has become visible in the night sky, this is why the intoxicated teen ended up crashing into the Burroughs car. This little blue dot turns out to be an earth like planet, in fact it turns out to be Another Earth, an exact replica of our planet that gets closer and closer to ours (yet the film never implies there is a danger of the two Earth's colliding, though I don't think two planets of such size could help but due so in such close proximity). This other Earth proves to be a duplicate of our Earth down to the people who inhabit it (a great scene has television showing the head of SETI making first radio contact with the other Earth, only to end up talking to herself at the other SETI). Some in the film theorize that the two Earths were in sync until the moment that they became visible to each other at which point variance became possible, this leaves Rhoda with the hope that her other self may have avoiding making the tragic mistake she did. When a private space tourism company offers a seat on a shuttle they intend to take to the other Earth to the winner of an essay contest, Rhoda of course has to enter.

Much credit to this film for its originality, as well as some fine tuned emotional poignancy. Though it started out just too indie for me, it grew on me and left me impressed. I hope to see more from director Cahill, and even more from Brit Marling who gives a crush inducing performance. ***