Elizabeth Olsen plays the titular character in the new cult thriller, “Martha Marcy May Marlene.” The middle two names are given to her by Patrick (John Hawkes, “Winter’s Bone”), a cult leader that seduces Martha with songs and sweet talk about how society and her family has let her down. The movie uses a flashback technique to show Martha’s entry into the rural cult, and her present-day attempts to escape its influence after running back into the arms of her sister.
No attempt is made to explain why Martha first left home in search of a new life; it’s hinted that her parents have died, and that she may have had problems with a boyfriend. But the nameless rural group that brings Martha into their fold does so with a tried and true technique. Young men and women of the cult shower new recruits with praise, build up expectations that the newbie is destined for greatness, and then pummel them with rape and physical abuse, then the threat of such, to keep them in line. What starts as an alternative lifestyle devolves into a worldview where intimacy and life is debased. The cult serves mainly to provide the male members with fresh young females to screw. Eventually, Marcy May begins to see the holes in cult leader Patrick’s philosophy, and she flees into the not-so-open arms of her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson).
Lucy and her husband Ted (Hugh Dancy), take Martha in to stay with them in their spacious lake house. Having just liberated herself from a place where a handful of girls sleep half naked in a room while awaiting their turn to do dishes or service another member of the cult, Martha thinks nothing of stripping down starkers to go swimming, or walk in on Ted and Lucy as they're trying for a baby. She also berates her sister for their opulent lifestyle. Neither Lucy nor Ted know where Martha has been, and strangely, Martha's bizarre, obviously depressed and disturbed behavior annoys rather than concerns them.
This movie had my stomach in knots for most of its running time. It’s creepy, and disturbing in its depiction of how easy it is to take an impressionable youth and change them into a completely different person. It flashes back between the two halves of its narrative, disorienting the viewer. But I eventually got frustrated with Lucy and Ted, who seem so self-absorbed as to completely ignore the warning signs that there is something very, very wrong with Martha. In some ways, that makes the point that ol’ Patrick was making to little Marcy May when he told her again and again about how her family had let her down. That’s disturbing in itself.
Several scenes are underlit, and I had a hard time making out shapes and characters from time to time. And the film does not build upon itself enough to deserve the open-ended cut to black that closes the movie. But “Martha Marcy May Marlene” is certainly well-acted, especially by Elizabeth Olsen, who has to put herself through a ringer of emotions, all without devolving into parody. And John Hawkes, all sinewy and popping veins, is brilliant as cult leader Patrick. It’s a hard film to recommend, but for those that enjoy a glimpse of the darker side of human nature, there may be illumination here.
No attempt is made to explain why Martha first left home in search of a new life; it’s hinted that her parents have died, and that she may have had problems with a boyfriend. But the nameless rural group that brings Martha into their fold does so with a tried and true technique. Young men and women of the cult shower new recruits with praise, build up expectations that the newbie is destined for greatness, and then pummel them with rape and physical abuse, then the threat of such, to keep them in line. What starts as an alternative lifestyle devolves into a worldview where intimacy and life is debased. The cult serves mainly to provide the male members with fresh young females to screw. Eventually, Marcy May begins to see the holes in cult leader Patrick’s philosophy, and she flees into the not-so-open arms of her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson).
Lucy and her husband Ted (Hugh Dancy), take Martha in to stay with them in their spacious lake house. Having just liberated herself from a place where a handful of girls sleep half naked in a room while awaiting their turn to do dishes or service another member of the cult, Martha thinks nothing of stripping down starkers to go swimming, or walk in on Ted and Lucy as they're trying for a baby. She also berates her sister for their opulent lifestyle. Neither Lucy nor Ted know where Martha has been, and strangely, Martha's bizarre, obviously depressed and disturbed behavior annoys rather than concerns them.
This movie had my stomach in knots for most of its running time. It’s creepy, and disturbing in its depiction of how easy it is to take an impressionable youth and change them into a completely different person. It flashes back between the two halves of its narrative, disorienting the viewer. But I eventually got frustrated with Lucy and Ted, who seem so self-absorbed as to completely ignore the warning signs that there is something very, very wrong with Martha. In some ways, that makes the point that ol’ Patrick was making to little Marcy May when he told her again and again about how her family had let her down. That’s disturbing in itself.
Several scenes are underlit, and I had a hard time making out shapes and characters from time to time. And the film does not build upon itself enough to deserve the open-ended cut to black that closes the movie. But “Martha Marcy May Marlene” is certainly well-acted, especially by Elizabeth Olsen, who has to put herself through a ringer of emotions, all without devolving into parody. And John Hawkes, all sinewy and popping veins, is brilliant as cult leader Patrick. It’s a hard film to recommend, but for those that enjoy a glimpse of the darker side of human nature, there may be illumination here.
--Nathan Cone
