I tend to prefer my sci-fi small in scale but big in ideas. It was for this reason, and the positive critical reception, that I was hoping for good things from Another Earth but in the end I was left a little disappointed. Brit Marling has been proclaimed as a talent to watch and maybe this is the case (her next film, Sound of My Voice, certainly looks intriguing) but I’m slightly unconvinced on the basis of this film.

The science-fiction element here plays as a thematic shadow, always looming over the characters as they try and deal with guilt and loss and what their lives might be like on Earth 2. It is a neat conceit but one that I found actually clouded the real human drama between these two connected but lost individuals. The concept of another Earth is ripe with possibility both as a story device and for the characters in the film but it lays the message on thick and the indie stylings (grainy digital video, long muted passages etc.) became intrusive as if the filmmakers were desperate to show its independent credentials. I found the aesthetics so heavy handed that it actually stopped me buying into the characters at all. Their performances are decent, although far from award worthy, but it was impossible for me to care about their situation or relationship whilst the end ties everything conveniently up into a nice little bow. Who knows, maybe there is an Earth 2 out there with a better, less self-conscious, version of this film.