Another Earth or: A Powerfully Bittersweet, Multi-layered Story All Bundled into a Low-Budget Sci-Fi (Film Analysis)

What would it be like to meet yourself?  What would you ask?  What if your other self was a more successful version, or perhaps one that has suffered far more than you?  What would you say?

Another Earth...does not answer any of these questions.  It does, however, tempt the idea, and it does so with a thoroughly profound story.  Mike Cahill’s first directorial crack at a feature-length fictional plot treats its audience with a rich, multilayered cake of a story.  At the film’s core is a very human story enclosed within a science-fiction scenario.  The latter plays a more background role, fueling its potent core with thoughtful questions and intriguing new directions that wouldn’t have been possible with a story grounded in realism.  The film’s “lack” of forefront sci-fi elements possibly has to do with its extremely small budget of around one-hundred thousand dollars (note that the indie film Ex Machina had around a fifteen-million-dollar budget).  Regardless of whether or not an increase in money would have altered the plot, the film’s chicken feed budget seems to have ultimately worked in the film’s favor—forcing the writers to get creative with presenting its sci-fi elements and placing more effort into crafting a damn interesting story as compensation.

At its human core is protagonist Rhonda Williams (Brit Marling, who co-wrote the film’s script along with its director Mike Cahill), an aspiring astronomer who has been accepted into MIT.  Her inspirations are cut short, however, when, after celebrating her acceptance with friends, makes the very poor decision of driving home intoxicated.  Rhonda ends up crashing headfirst into the car of a well-known composer and his family—killing the pregnant wife and young son while sending the dad into a coma.  Rhonda serves a four-year prison sentence, yet even after release suffers immensely from her own guilt and grief over one bad decision.  She becomes reclusive and monotone in expression, showing little motivation for anything and getting a custodian job that requires minimal contact with others.

The only person Rhonda does not shun away is an elderly fellow custodian named Purdeep (Kumar Pallana), who gives her advice about clearing her mind to find peace.  Purdeep is blind, having previously poured bleach into his eyes, and later pours bleach in his ears to go deaf.  Similar to Rhonda, the man has his own past demons he’s trying to deal with.  There’s a heartwarming, heartbreaking scene where Rhonda goes to visit Purdeep in the hospital, who immediately recognizes her snuggling up beside him despite being both blind and deaf; “Rhonda. You are wondering why. No. No. No. You know why.”

Eventually, the grief becomes too great and Rhonda tries killing herself by lying naked in the freezing cold snow.  Rhonda ends up surviving her attempted suicide and goes to revisit the spot of the crash, by chance spotting the recently awakened composer mourning at the same spot.  Rhonda follows the man John (William Mapother) home in an attempt to reveal her actions and apologize yet gets cold feet at the last second and quickly makes up a lie about her being a maid there to offer a free trial cleaning service.  John has, likewise, spiraled into grief from the crash’s aftermath and become a recluse from society.   He is unaware of who Rhonda truly is—having had his brother rip up all documented evidence about the intoxicated driver for fear of what he might do to them if he learned their identity—accepting her offer and hiring her to clean up his disheveled mess of a house.  Rhonda continues to practice telling John the truth at home, but keeps losing her nerve—instead, putting all her effort into vigorously cleaning his house (even buying cleaning supplies with her own money) while ripping up all the checks John gives to her.

The two star-crossed grievers start getting closer with each other, John inviting Rhonda to eat TV dinners and play Wii boxing together.  The two begin to show color and life again, being especially noticeable for the audience who, up to this point, have mainly seen Rhonda as a shell of her past self.  One of Another Earth’s highlight scenes occurs when John gets a massive headache after exerting himself too much.  In order to try to help with the migraine, Rhonda tells John a story about the first person to go into space:

Rhonda: You know that story of the Russian cosmonaut? So, the cosmonaut. He's the first man ever to go into space…So he goes up in this big spaceship, but the only habitable part of it's very small. So the cosmonaut's in there, and he's got this portal window, and he's looking out of it, and he sees the curvature of the Earth... for the first time. I mean, the first man to ever look at the planet he's from. And he's lost in that moment.

Not since the opening scene has Rhonda shown such life in her.  For the first time, John gets to see the once aspiring student who loved astronomy and dreamed of space:

Rhonda: And all of a sudden this strange ticking... Begins coming out of the dashboard. Rips out the control panel, right? Takes out his tools. Trying to find the sound, trying to stop the sound. But he can't find it. He can't stop it. It keeps going.

As she gets to the ticking part, Rhonda begins tapping the table with the end of her knife in a steady rhythm.  Marling’s acting is superb here as her emoting grows more frantic in conjunction with the increasing speed of the tapping, yet her voice remains soothing and calm in a mesmeric, comforting way:

Rhonda: Few hours into this, begins to feel like torture. A few days go by with this sound, and he knows that this small sound... will break him. He'll lose his mind. What's he gonna do? He's up in space, alone, in a space closet. He's got 25 days left to go... with this sound. So the cosmonaut decides... the only way to save his sanity... is to fall in love with this sound. So he closes his eyes...

At this point Rhonda gently makes John close his eyes, and as her tapping slowly comes to a halt does the soundtrack commence with a beautifully elegant violin piece as John smiles contently:

Rhonda: ...and he goes into his imagination, and then he opens them. He doesn't hear ticking anymore. He hears music. And he spends the remainder of his time... sailing through space in total bliss... and peace.

There is no factual account of a Russian cosmonaut trapped in space with a tapping sound, nor does the film take from any folk tale, yet it’s told so convincingly that, the first time I heard it, I was easily willing to believe its authenticity.  Or, perhaps, I simply wanted to believe it was true.  That Cahill and Marling could craft such a wonderfully organic-sounding little story and present it in such a beautifully captivating manner deserves immense praise.  What an enchanting. lovely scene.

Later on, John gets his own chance to impress when he brings Rhonda to a theater and finds the courage to play for her for the first time since his accident.  Using a violin bow and a saw, John begins playing an eerily beautiful tune.  The music is ghostly and sounds out of this world, yet also tranquil and pleasing on the ears.  For Rhonda, the music conjures imagery of being in space, away from the world and all her troubles—just her alone in the serene beauty of the cosmos.  What’s so impressive about these two great scenes is how minimalistic they are in terms of camerawork.  These scenes are about as basic as you can get when it comes to visual cinematography, and yet through effective acting, sound, and pacing, they are able to craft the seeming wonders of space exploration far better than many blockbuster space-focused films.  That's some damn good use and showcasing of cinema’s illusionary capabilities.

Now, most savvy viewers will by this point know where John and Rhonda’s relationship is going, and soon enough, the two’s revival of passion into each other's lives turns into physical passion.  Yet the dark truth behind their relationship still resides, and it begins haunting Rhonda again when John tells her all about his past, as well as the fury he feels towards the drunk driver that brought him such misery—the very person who is now bringing him such happiness.  Rhonda finds herself once again racked with guilt, looking at herself in the mirror with appalling disgust before immediately throwing up.  I’ve given much praise to the human element of Another Earth, and yet I’ve yet to even touch the outer layer that forms this very story—that is to say, the other Earth in Another Earth.  

The story opens with scientists discovering a small blue planet far off in space that may possibly support life.  It's this very planet that distracts the intoxicated Rhonda while driving and causes her to crash head-first into John's car.  Four years later, and the planet has gotten startlingly closer—appearing identical to our own Earth, complete with its own moon.  Things get even stranger when Earth makes satellite contact with the identical planet and are answered by the exact same individual that radioed in—complete with the same childhood memories.  The entire world falls into a frenzy of questions as they realize the planet may very well be an exact mirror of their own Earth.  Discussions begin flying around about the end of the world(s), whether or not invasions would be possible or simply end in MAD as whatever we do, they will do as well, and street preachers rambling how the other Earth is not real and merely a projection of their own Earth.

The film leaves it ambiguous as to why another Earth, referred to as Earth 2, has appeared, in addition to why only Earth has appeared, and not, say, the other planets and/or Galaxies along with it.  The scientific explanations are left unexplored, as are the darker, grimmer themes involving Earth 2 coming closer and closer into range with our own.  The best explanation I can produce is the plot’s limited perspective from Rhonda, a person whose life has already been destroyed in a way and would care a whole lot less about the possible impending collision of both worlds.  With a minimalistic budget, the filmmakers make the best out of their situation with a minimalist, yet highly effective Sci-Fi approach.  Earth 2 Is consistently seen in the background throughout Rhonda’s day; always overlooking and drawing closer and closer by the day like the Moon in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

Rhonda ends up entering an essay contest sponsored by a millionaire entrepreneur and wins a spot on a flight path to Earth 2.  She tells John who initially feigns excitement and happiness over the situation yet ultimately reveals his true colors in a very potent delivery; “Don't go…Please don't go. We're so close to something here.”  Rhonda finally finds the strength to tell John, through a transparent story, who she really is.  The reveal goes about as one might expect and their relationship is immediately shattered, to the point where John becomes unable to control his rage anymore and, in a very intense scene, begins choking Rhonda, though he ultimately can’t bring himself to kill her.

Rhonda tells John of a theory she heard called the broken mirror theory that hypothesizes the moment the two Earths noticed one another, the parallel timelines between them broke.  Since Rhonda crashes while looking at Earth 2, she theorizes that her parallel self may have done otherwise—meaning John’s family is still alive on Earth 2.  Rhonda ultimately gives her ticket to John, who accepts and becomes one of the first few to travel to the other planet.  The act seems to finally quell Rhonda's immense guilt, showing contentment at her custodian job.  Four months later, while returning home from work, Rhonda finds another Rhonda waiting for her—the later dressed in a far more successful attire.  Just as they are about to interact, however, the film cuts to its credits.

The film never gives answers to its many questions brought up, yet these questions were never the point.  It is the journey, not the destination that Another Earth is focused on, and it is a potent character-driven journey about isolation, grief, love, anger, despair, and redemption all bundled into a low-budget science fiction.  Another Earth is a prime example of how one can achieve so much with such little budget.  A powerfully bittersweet, multi-layered story that engrosses from start to finish.