The Man From Earth (2007)

This is the kind of movie that people will typically recommend to me—like The Matrix or Waking Life, but I stumbled across it on Netflix where it's an instant watch. If you can imagine this, it's like a cross between The Matrix, The da Vinci Code and Star Trek's Requiem for a Methuselah (which screenwriter Jerome Bixby also wrote) that takes place in one room, half the time in the dark! The premise of the film is that a professor, ready to move away, reveals to his colleagues that he is a caveman who has been alive for 14,000 years. The idea is reminiscent of the old Twilight Zone episode Long Live Walter Jameson about a similar immortal. Curiously, Jerome Bixby did write a Twilight Zone episode but not that one. He wrote the original story "A Good Life," about the kid who wants everyone to "think happy thoughts."

The movie is well-constructed and a captivating watch. But it stumbles in a number of places. The film is at its best when it poses epistemological questions: how do we know things? What makes a story believable? The film is at its worst when it provides definite answers, from its spurious take on world religions to the final, emotional scene. Worse, is when Bixby goes all Shirley MacClaine on us and links the professor to famous moments in history. Example: when packing, one of his friends says, "Hey, that painting looks just like a Van Gogh...." At least, the professor didn't meet Cleopatra or Joan of Arc. The final effect is something like reading The da Vinci Code. It's engaging when you're in the midst of it, but when you're done, the whole thing evaporates leaving no real trace. The only question that remains is "yes, but where is Scott Bakula?"