Review of Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) by Cody Y — 08 Mar 2012

Critics seems to be giving this film a bit too much acclaim, and it's understandable. Olsen's performance is devoted and risque, and the transitions from past to present are impressive, but in all honesty, most of the film seems to fail in some aspects.

Multiple characters make strange and illogical decisions through-out the movie without any real believable purpose to it, and if done in excess, like in this movie, it can really take the audience away from the movie.

The shots are very bland and colorless, but not in a way to compliment the story. For example, the ending would have been perfectly well done if not for the lazy camerawork. The story tells Martha's past and the inter-workings of the cult a little too ambiguously; I know this is the directors choice to leave somethings a little open-ended for the imagination, but it loses the genuine and disturbing tone I know this movie was going for.

Hawkes performance as the head of the cult was very notable, but in the end, I don't think it's going to leave as big of a haunting impression in the viewers as it'd like.