MEANWHILE ON EARTH (2024)

3 stars

Blue Finch Film Releasing. Digital. 25th August

Original title: Pendant ce temps sur Terre

A space mission. Elsa (Megan Northam) speaks to her brother Captain Franck Martens (Sébastien Pouderoux). Says he’ll be back soon… they are obviously close. But then he goes missing and has now been ‘lost” in space for 3 years. A large statue in memory of him on a local roundabout is a constant reminder to Elsa, so she spray paints it with a large green letter

Elsa works as a nurse in a hospital working with dementia patients and she constantly draws (her drawing s are brought to life with cool animated interludes). Her Mum Annick (Catherine Salée) runs the home. Her father Daniel (Sam Louwyck) is in the basement, pretending to play piano as he listens to music and smokes pot. She also has a younger brother Vincent (Roman Williams).

Then one night when she is out with her brother – he is distracted and she thinks she hears a voice say her name. Odd but she carries on. More strange things happen – one evening driving she sees a dog in the road. Following it she finds a drugged up woman in an alley who acts weird.

Later listening to her car radio it starts to fritz. Getting out of her car an odd phenomenon and then she hears her brother who talks to her. He talks of ‘they’ – who can bring him back but it will rely on her. She needs to find a specific seed – which when she locates it and pops it in her ear. She can converse now clearly with her missing brother. What is going on? How will this help bring her beloved sibling back?

A science fiction drama, this posits a sort of quiet invasion, as Elsa makes contact with aliens of some sort and is asked to help in taking over people – however, you question whether what she is hearing and seeing is real or imagined, as the story explores how far somebody would go to get back someone they love and miss.

A French/Belgian production written and directed by Jérémy Clapin this is an oddly compelling drama with sf overtones. An exploration of how people handle grief and loss. The black and white animated interludes look like something out of FANTASTIC PLANET. Whilst it retains your interest throughout due to the strong performance by Megan Northam, it does kind of fizzle out and just ends — ultimately it feels very slight.

Steve Kirkham