Flick Pick: Another Earth — ambitious and sincere, but plot twists don’t work

An award-winner at the Sundance Film Festival, Another Earth is a tiny-budget film that has tantalized many a viewer with its combination of heavy human drama and weird, reality-bending sci-fi metaphors. Sadly, this viewer here wasn’t quite as mesmerized.

The film opens with an introduction to 18-year-old Rhoda (Brit Marling, also a writer of the script), recently graduated and partying the night away having just found out she’s on her way to MIT. On her way home, though, the combination of too much drink and a shocking radio announcement causes her to veer head-on into a family in another car.

Four years later, Rhoda gets out of prison, and ends up seeking out the only other survivor of the crash. He’s John (William Mapother, known as Ethan on “Lost”), a concert musician, and she sneaks her way into his life by pretending to be a maid.

You can see what happens next. Oh wait, I forgot to tell you . . . there’s another planet Earth, recently discovered, exactly like our own, and Rhoda’s 500-word essay has just won her the only civilian ticket on the rocketship headed its way.

Don’t try and think about the logistics of two identical Earths flying through space side by side, because Another Earth doesn’t. The extra Earth stands mostly as a metaphor, for what I’m not totally sure, because I had a really difficult time engaging emotionally with the film. This is a bad thing when a movie is so ambitious.

Unless we care about Rhoda and John it’s pretty tough to put in the effort to figure out just why the filmmakers have shoehorned a Twilight Zone episode into your typical micro-indie drama.

Critics and fans have lauded Another Earth for its pretensions, citing some deeper, grander meaning that somehow crystallizes as the result of the film’s preposterously enigmatic final shot.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen and loved many a twisted, low-budget sci-fi, but in this case the plot convolutions feel like an excuse to distract us from what is otherwise a pretty standard guilt and redemption story.

It does pain me to be so brutal here, as it seems unfair to hammer away at something so ambitious and sincere. I just wouldn’t want the wrong person to wander into Another Earth expecting either great sci-fi or great drama, because it’s neither. It feels more like an experiment, a flashy, look-at-me calling card that — sadly — appears to have worked.