Though it begins with its cinematic feet affixed to the ground, French writer-director Jérémy Clapin’s “Meanwhile on Earth,” his moody hybrid follow-up to the lyrical, Oscar-nominated animated feature “I Lost My Body,” soon launches beyond the stratosphere and into outer space. Adrift, Elsa (Megan Northam), a young caregiver with a talent for drawing, looks to the stars for answers about the whereabouts of her older brother Franck (voiced by Sébastien Pouderoux), a cosmonaut who never returned to this planet from a mission. To her shock, the astral void will respond to her pleas — but not without major consequences.
There’s great pleasure in seeing that Clapin’s first alluring foray into live-action filmmaking doesn’t entirely renounce hand-drawn storytelling. Meditative black-and-white animated sequences, where Elsa and Franck interact aboard a spaceship, are interspersed at key instances in the narrative. Even more intriguing, however, is that the wistful tone he evoked in “I Lost
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