Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling) is a brilliant 17 year-old who has spent her young life trained on the stars, and recently learned she was accepted to MIT. In a reckless, celebratory moment, she drinks with friends and drives home intoxicated.
Listening to a story on the radio about a planet that looks just like Earth, she gazes out her car window at the stars and inadvertently hits a stopped car at an intersection, putting John Burroughs (William Mapother) in a coma and killing his wife and son. Rhoda is a minor, so her identity is not revealed to John.
After serving her prison sentence, Rhoda, after 4 years of isolation, continues to shield herself from the world outside, becoming a janitor at a local school, wanting to work “physically,” almost as a means to struggle past the potential she has squandered with the decision of a single night.
After cleaning her former high school for a while and hearing more news stories about the mirror Earth, Rhoda visits John’s house after he has recovered, thinking she will apologize for the harm she did to him. He answers the door and she loses her nerve. Instead, she pretends to be a maid offering a free day of cleaning as a marketing tool for Maid in Haven (a New Haven based maid service).
John, who has dropped out of his Yale music faculty position and is now living in a depressed and dirty stupor, agrees to Rhoda’s offer. When she finishes, John, who still does not know she is the person who killed his wife and son, asks her to come back next week. Rhoda tells him someone will come, but it may not be her.
Rhoda returns to clean and develops a caring relationship with John that eventually becomes more significant and romantic. They like each other and are intelligent and compatible conversationally. Rhoda genuinely wants to be of service to him.
Rhoda enters an essay contest sponsored by a millionaire entrepreneur who is offering a civilian space flight to the mirror Earth. Rhoda’s essay is selected and she is chosen to be one of the first explorers to travel to the other Earth. Rhoda tells John she has won the space flight, but he asks her not to go. However, when she tells him that she was the one who killed his wife and son, he forces her out of his house.
Rhoda hears in a telecast a scientist postulating that the citizens of the mirror Earth might be identical to those on her Earth in every way until the moment they learned of the others’ existence. From that point on, the identical people on the different Earths probably began to deviate in small ways, changing their actions. Rhoda hopes her identical self on the other Earth did not make the mistakes she made on the night of the accident.
Rhoda returns to John’s house and leaves him the ticket to the other Earth, telling him enough information to give him a small hope that his wife and son might be alive on that planet. John accepts the gift and becomes one of the first civilian space travelers to the other Earth. Four months later, Rhoda looks up at the sky where Earth 2 is now hidden in fog. She approaches her back door and sees her twin from Earth 2 standing in front of her.
Another Earth
Directed by: Mike Cahill
Starring: Brit Marling, William Mapother, Jordan Baker, Flint Beverage, Robin Taylor, Bruce Colbert, Ana Valle, Jordan Baker, Robin Lord Taylor
Screenplay by: Mike Cahill, Brit Marling
Production Design by: Darsi Monaco
Cinematography by: Mike Cahill
Film Editing by: Mike Cahill
Costume Design by: Aileen Alvarez-Diana
Music by: Fall on Your Sword, Phil Mossman
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for disturbing images, some sexuality, nudity and brief drug use.
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release Date: July 22, 2011
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