She graduated valedictorian at Georgetown and turned down a job at Goldman Sachs to make movies. Hollywood saw a cute blonde, decorative, interchangeable. She decided she needed to create her own roles.

Britt Marling wrote two films at once, one in the mornings, one in the afternoons. Both films premiered at Sundance the same year. ANOTHER EARTH (2011), which she co-wrote, produced, and starred in, won a jury prize.

Marling plays Rhoda, an MIT-bound teenager who, on the night a duplicate Earth is discovered in the sky, drives home drunk and kills a composer's wife and young son. Out of prison years later, driven by guilt, she insinuates herself into the widower's wrecked life as his cleaner.

Overhead, the second Earth grows closer. It holds a copy of every person on this Earth, which means somewhere up there is another Rhoda who did not get in the car that night.

This is an understated film about regret and the fantasy of a second self who made the better choice.

In a 2017 essay on the economics of consent, Marling described being sent up to Harvey Weinstein's hotel room. She credited her ability to walk out to the fact that she was both actor and creator. She didn't need his permission to have a career.