the joyful revival of French science fiction on a human scale

“How much do you love me?” a brother asks his sister. This is the question posed by a man who is adrift in space, negotiating a terrible, existential and dramatic “deal”. A success.

Author of the remarkable I lost my bodyon a severed hand that escaped from a lab in search of its owner, Jérémy Clapin repeats the feat in quality with Meanwhile on Earth which comes out on Wednesday, June 26. After his first animated film, the filmmaker moves on to live action shooting with actors, with the same dexterity.

Meanwhile on Earth imagines a young woman who hears the voice of her brother, an astronaut lost in space: a magnificent subject, served by inventive writing, interpretation and staging.

Elsa, 23, lives in mourning for her brother Franck, who disappeared during a space mission three years ago. Until the day a voice tells her that she can bring him back to Earth, but at an exorbitant price. A beautiful dilemma that Jérémy Clapin writes and directs, keeping us riveted from beginning to end. He propels us into a cosmic, metaphysical, human and romantic mystery.

Resplendent with freshness and depth, Meanwhile on Earth bears witness to a demanding, popular and enthusiastic French cinema. It confirms Jérémy Clapin as an original author and talented director on ambitious and adult subjects, while entertaining. At a time of disinterest in the conquest of space, After The Astronaut (Nicolas Giraud, 2022), Meanwhile on Earth is the second recent French film to focus on it.

Megan Northam (Elsa) is transparent in her feelings, inhabited by this voice from beyond, beyond death and space. Is she schizophrenic, annihilated by the loss of her brother, or really in communication with him? Will she carry out her costly mission? So many leads that we take with her, to which is added that of the reason that Elsa must keep, under the influence of an order from above that pushes her to her limits.

Meanwhile on Earth is part of a line of films that renew genre cinema in France, here a science fiction at human height. Elsa’s brother could have disappeared in Kongo or Nepal. That it is in space spontaneously opens the film to metaphysics. Jérémy Clapin invites it in a romantic mode thanks to Elsa’s sisterhood with Franck, who invites her and us with him, to hear the music of the spheres.

Gender : Drama
Director : Jeremy Clapin
Country : France
Duration : 1h29
Exit : July 3, 2024
Distributer : Diaphana Distribution

Synopsis: Elsa, 23, has always been very close to her older brother Franck, an astronaut who mysteriously disappeared 3 years earlier during a space mission. One day, she is contacted from space by an unknown life form that claims to be able to bring her brother back to Earth. But there is a price to pay…