Many congratulations to Elizabeth Olsen for escaping the shadow of her two older sisters and establishing herself as a young force to be reckoned with. A challenging first role proves that this girl not only has the gorgeous face of a leading lady in the making, but also has the acting chops to qualify what I hope will be many starring roles to come. Although "Martha Marcy May Marlene" leaves a lot to be desired I was never left desiring more from its star.
Olsen plays the wounded and unstable Martha--or Marcy May, or Marlene, depending on who you are talking to--who after two years off the grid calls up her sister in hysterics. She has escaped from a secluded farm where she was the member of an abusive cult headed by the enigmatic Patrick (John Hawkes), full of falsely wise words and conflicting arguments. As she tries to reengage with the real world and connect to her estranged family, growing paranoia seeps in as Martha senses her location has been compromised.
The film is told in two parallel story lines: the primary examining Martha as she readjusts to living in the lavish comfort of the summer home rented by her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and her wealthy husband (Hugh Dancy), and the other where Marcy May is indoctrinated and brainwashed into her "new family". The second acts as a supplement to explain Martha's erratic and occasionally violent behavior, as we see the conflict of her mind being broken and mended simultaneously.
Writer-director Sean Durkin has made a very promising first feature-length movie which shows his talent for suspense and some rather skillful dialogue. He found an excellent muse in Olsen who showed no inhibitions in front of the camera and who was willing to go down the very dark road that Durkin set out for her. Martha is a dangerous girl, not by choice but out of circumstance. Durkin set out to do what many before him have done, blending the real and the surreal and breaking the walls of comfort for the audience where what goes bump in the night might not be such an abstract boogeyman. The two of them largely succeed and the film held my attention.
Durkin did struggle in fleshing out what I imagine would be the primary interest of the audience: the inner workings of the cult (it was for me, at least). A cult needs to have some sort of doctrine with a primary objective, and is marked by the leadership of a single figure. The latter it certainly had, Patrick being the older, strangely hypnotic figurehead who has surrounded himself with a group of naive, beautiful young people. As to their doctrine I have no idea what they were about. Their farmhouse contains probably twenty or so people living there, all of them sharing a few rooms, the same clothes and helping the family in their own unique ways. It largely resembled a commune, founded on subsistence living but without the presence of drugs or alcohol. They ground themselves in free love and the relinquishing of material comforts, but to what end I don't know. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to their actions which become inexplicably violent, and there is no information given to explain how a girl like Martha could allow herself to become Marcy May.
Then there is the matter of the ending. As Martha's dreams and memories become mixed with what we figure to be reality, the film turns from a drama about a traumatized girl having to learn to function normally all over again into a psychological thriller where the ghosts of her past come to haunt her. The pace quickens as it should, the tension mounts, then suddenly and unpleasantly the credits roll. There is no final payoff and only a hint that murky faces were indeed known to her.
He cannot be criticized too harshly for these points though. The plot was more focused on the here and now, and Martha's broken relationship with Lucy. In all it this is a success and an interesting one at that. It may not change the game for moviemaking in general, but it certainly put Olsen on the map and that should be good enough for anyone.
3/4
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