Meanwhile on Earth: Dramatizing a Low-key Mystery Alien Invasion

By Chris Knight

Rating: B

There’s more than a little of Under the Skin, Jonathan Glazer’s 2013 creepy sci-fi masterpiece, baked into the DNA of Meanwhile on Earth, from French writer-director Jeremy Clapin.

But where Glazer’s movie centred on an alien interloper (perfectly played by Scarlett Johansson), this one is a little more earthbound, befitting its title.

Elsa (Megan Northam) is aimless and lost since the disappearance of her older brother Franck, missing and presumed dead after he failed to return from a mission to deep space. She fills her days working at a nursing home run by her mother, but her heart isn’t in it.

And then one day a blob that looks like a piece of discarded extra-terrestrial chewing gum puts her in contact with the disembodied voice (Dimitri Doré) of an alien intelligence. It knows where Franck is, and is prepared to return him, but first Elsa must deliver five living human bodies for the voice and its companions to inhabit.

Why they need her help is a little unclear, as is the ending of the film, which seemed to be aiming for mysterious but only managed to bullseye confusing, at least for this viewer. But it’s still an interesting story and manages to capture the essential unknowable quality of an off-world species, though perhaps not as well as Arrival, which remains my favourite in the what-do-they-want sub-genre of alien invasion flicks.

Clapin uses animated interludes to flesh out his human characters — his previous feature was 2019’s Oscar-nominated animated film J’ai Perdu Mon Corps (I Lost My Body). It’s an effective and beautiful way of turning emotions into visuals.

Meanwhile on Earth. Directed by Jeremy Clapin. Starring Megan Northam and Dimitri Doré. In theatres November 8.