Earthling is an ambitious low-budget scifi movie about a bunch of people bound together by a strange reaction to an anomalous event in Earth's orbit. The main character loses her unborn child in a car accident and struggles to put her life and mind together, it doesn't help that she's hallucinating and seems to be stalked by strangers suffering similar problems. Nicely acted and with the confidence to tease out the plot gradually there's some Cronenberg-esque body horror and some dreamy Lynchian influences throughout. It's not without it's flaws but it's a nice quiet, examination of alienation and the human experience and with a bigger budget and maybe with some extra polish this could have been brilliant. An assured debut.
Love, is another low budget/large ambition feature debut only this time set in orbit. It's the tale of a lonely astronaut stranded on ISS Mk 2 struggling to maintain his sanity after an unspecified calamity separates all contact with Earth. Despite the titchy budget there's plenty of nice looking effects, some decent set pieces and few wisps of atmosphere along the way. The film is interestingly framed by a Civil War era tale but it's woefully underused and the director prefers to punctuate both with wholly unnecessary talking head snippets discussing the nature of human relationships, life etc. I dunno it's a nice, if derivative, little film with an excellent central performance it's just shamefully squandered by the uneasy mishmash of styles, a limp 2001 inspired end and a foolish, pretentious final few frames.
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