There are a tiny number of individuals in film for whom I make a point to try to see everything they are involved in. Brit Marling is one of them. She is a bold and talented screenwriter and she is an extremely fine actress with an amazing voice and presence. Her latest film, I Origins, was written and directed by one of her main collaborators, Mike Cahill, with whom she co-wrote the fantastic 2011 science fiction film Another Earth (which Cahill directed). I’ve been excitedly waiting for I Origins, and happily caught it a while back, on its opening night at Sunshine. Sadly, there were only about 15 people in the audience – I guess film dramas about laboratory nerds don’t really pack ’em in.

I Origins is a film about science, about love, about personality, and about the idea of reincarnation approached secularly. As this list implies, it’s quite an ambitious piece of work, and even though it doesn’t hang together perfectly and ultimately lacks the depth and profundity you anticipate from it, one can’t but be impressed by the quality and diversity of ideas present in the film. This web of ideas integrates smoothly, supported by strong dialog, dialog that’s courageous enough to realistically explore some pretty dry, technical and philosophical conversations. The first two-thirds of the film is a lovely character study about the nature of love and attraction, and about the nature of scientific thought and scientific pursuit. In its last third the film makes a somewhat sudden leap into what might be called a mystical paranoia thriller. Although the two sections are connected via various narrative threads, they unfortunately don’t fit together very well, and there’s a noticeable change (for the worse) in pacing, depth, and performances in the later section. That’s not to say it falls apart, indeed the last third is in many ways exciting and surprising. It’s just that as a whole, the film feels a bit discontinuous.

But what is consistent throughout the movie is Cahill’s remarkable ability to capture scenes and moments beautifully and memorably, especially at the various climax moments in the film – they might not fully take your breath away, but they come awfully close! And in addition, the same ubiquitously haunting quality that made Another Earth so intoxicating is also present in I Origins. These qualities are so striking that even with the film’s shortcomings they’re probably enough to make me watch the film again. That’s saying something!

As the scientist at the center of the story, Michael Pitt looks like no other science graduate student ever, with his Suit Supply outfits, his hipster glasses, his immaculate, super stylish hair, and his big, puffy, Thomas Hardy lips. However, he gives a really nice performance, in what strikes me as a rather difficult role. Astrid Berges-Frisbey was effective in her role, and was a near perfect piece of physical casting opposite Pitt.  Brit Marling is, as always, fantastic; I swear, in the scene where Pitt unexpectedly brings his wife (Berges-Frisbey) to the lab, where she and Marling meet for the first time, Marling turns in one of the most perfect pieces of acting I’ve seen in a long time. She takes films to a whole other place, I don’t know how else to describe it. The three leads form a subtle and multi-dimensional triangle that somehow manages to be both invigorating and elegiac at the same time. There really are no supporting players, but the incidental acting is solid.

In the final analysis, I Origins is sort of wonderful, but also a little frustrating. It drips with large swaths of quality – in its writing, casting, acting, scenes, ideas – but it also suffers from a kind of unevenness and discontinuity which puts a ceiling on the overall impact of the film. I would say that the positive qualities of this film clearly outweigh the negatives, and would definitely recommend I Origins. It’s still playing at Sunshine.