Elsa has been having visions. In several whimsical animated vignettes sprinkled throughout the dreamy French sci-fi film Meanwhile on Earth, Elsa (Megan Northam) is an astronaut with a chirpy disposition and a pair of antennae sticking out of her head, accompanying her brother Franck on his outer-space voyages. They fly past strange planets and stranger aliens, all while her brother, his face always hidden in shadow, is positively magnificent — the ideal noble astronaut.
But back on Earth, Elsa’s face seems permanently twisted into a grimace. There are no antennae to be seen on her disheveled head. Instead, she spends her days passively working at a nursing home, caring for people who are nearly as detached from reality as she is. She spends her nights alone by the statue of her brother, who has been missing for three years after a space mission gone wrong. The town erected the statue in his absence — their hometown hero — but an angry, despondent Elsa has graffitied over it, upset over having been abandoned by the person closest to her. So it might not have been unusual when, during one of her late-night jaunts by Franck’s statue, she suddenly hears his voice. This time, however, it’s not one of her daydreams, but an odd, panicked message from the real Franck, instructing her to put the strange seed pod she just found into her ear.
