MOVIE OF THE MONTH: JULY 2011

                                                     
Director                          : Mike Cahill
Director of photography: Mike Cahill
Editor                             : Mike Cahill
Screenwriters                 : Mike Cahill, Brit Marling
Distributor                      : Fox-Searchlight 
Release Date                  : 22 July 2011
Duration                         : 92 minutes


Mike Cahill's Another Earth is science fiction at its best.The movie is a bolt from the blue here at Sundance. Its director of programming, John Cooper, admits the festival wasn't even tracking the title and the film arrived here without much heat until its Monday afternoon debut. That's all changed now.

The simple story has overtones of the recent Rabbit Hole. Marling's Rhoda Williams is a brainy young New Englander, recently accepted into MIT's astrophysics program. Distracted while driving one night, she causes a terrible accident that kills the entire family of a celebrated music composer, John Burroughs (William Mapother), leaving the man in a coma.

The distraction is crucial here. She was gazing out her window at a blue object in space. It seems astronomers had just discovered another planet hidden until then behind the sun. During her four years in prison, further scientific inquiry reveals this planet is a duplicate Earth.

All the while, Earth 2 looms larger and larger in the sky. The metaphysical question its presence poses is what if these people could confront themselves in a parallel continuum? Could things possibly be different and the accident didn't happen? Or at least can one learn from one's other self?

The outstanding credits across the board demonstrate once more how much can be achieved in film even on a modest budget. Another Earth won the 2011Alfred P. Sloan Prize for focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character.

Official Website: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/anotherearth/

Film Review Text Courtesy: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/sundance-review-earth-75062