The East

I’ve been writing little film reviews on this blog for about eighteen months now. I’ve almost always written a review within twenty-four hours or so of watching a movie but I saw The East nearly a week ago. Whether due my brief illness, boredom of writing or lack of interest in the film I can’t say, though I think all three contributed. The trailer for The East was one of the best I’ve seen in recent months. It gave little away and felt edgy and interesting. The film however doesn’t live up to the trailer. I’m a big fan of Brit Marling and thought that her writing and acting in Another Earth were superb. Here she crafts a script which is full of intrigue and expectation but fails to get to the heart of the issues that she is focussing her attention on.

I won’t go into much detail about the plot as some of the characters differ significantly from what I was expecting. All I will say is that there is a group calling themselves The East. They’re environmental terrorists (or freedom fighters depending on your perspective) who use tactics which can be best described as being ‘morally grey’ to right the wrongs done by large corporations. Brit Marling plays a member of The East but begins to question the morals of both sides as she uncovers more about The East, the corporations and herself.

Another Earth

Rhonda (Brit Marling), a bright and ambitious seventeen year old who has recently been accepted into MIT is driving home one night from a party when she hears an announcement on the radio stating that a planet has been discovered close to our own. The DJ tells his listeners to look up into the sky in search of the pale blue dot. Rhonda is mesmerized by the sight and takes her eyes off the road causing a collision which kills a woman and her son and leaves the father, John (William Mapother) in a coma. Four years later Rhonda is released from prison and gets a cleaning job at a high school. She wants to contact the man whose family she killed and apologise but loses her nerve and instead says she can clean his house. The film charts their relationship as Another Earth draws slowly closer to their own.

The film cost just $200,000 and while being remarkably well made and cast for that amount does look a little rough and cheap. This is not to the film’s detriment though as I don’t think that a shiny or glossy looking film would have worked quite so well. The science behind the story is fairly credible and as someone who is fascinated by astronomy, it had me going along with it. Although problems such as tides and light were ignored by the film makers, I didn’t let them distract me. There will be obvious comparisons to Lars von Trier’s Melancholia but they are mostly misplaced. The film lacks the sense of impending doom and instead views the second Earth as a chance for redemption and opportunity.