Review of Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) by Michael J. W — 10 Mar 2012

Martha Marcy May Marlene (2012).

Directed by T. Sean Durkin.

Starring the AMAZING Elizabeth Olsen...that's enough said...she's a film carrier from start to finish. Seriously though...the film also stars Sarah Paulson, John Hawkes, and Hugh Dancy.

Wow. Where to begin?

First off...there are SPOILERS here...so don't proceed if you plan on viewing.

Secondly...I guess we can begin with a Wow and an exclamation point.

That exclamation point is Elizabeth Olsen.

This is a fantastic film.

It's also a very scary, jarring, psychological nail biter of a thriller that might make you squirm in the comforts of your recliner, couch, or favorite spot. I can promise you that it will make you toss and turn a bit in your grapples and grasps for a good nights sleep soon after.

No matter what anyone tells you, Martha Marcy May Marlene is a film you need to see.

It's raw, rough, and damned uncomfortable at times. Quite often it makes you question the back woods mentality of polygamists, bigamy, and cult societies in general...its a very unnerving hour and forty one minutes with a subtle slap in the face ending that gives you the ole "Awwwwwwwww...hell nah!" feeling of dread for the cast.

I loved it.

John Hawkes, Olsen, and Paulson are phenomenal...that being said...this is a showcase for Olsen and she totally breaks away from the stigmata of her "fashioneesta sisters".

So let me stop going on and on over the cast and get into the meat and bones of the film...the script and its direction. To my knowledge this is T. Sean Durkin's second film and he's written and presented one hell of a psychological thriller. That term get's tossed around more than a football these days...but this one adds up. I literally looked over my shoulder a few times and actually got up and washed my hands twice during the film due to some damned sweaty palms. This one was a nerve ringing nail biter of a reel.

It cranks up, uncomfortably so, starring Elizabeth Olsen as Martha (or Marcy May...depending on who you think she becomes or is), a beautiful, young impressionable girl who is figuratively "dropped off on the side of the road lost" and DAMN is she in some state of a shamble!

After frantically running through a dense forest to a local diner of some Up-State backwoods town (literally), she jumps onto a pay phone with great haste and calls Lucy (Sarah Paulson...who we later learn to be her big sister) to come to her rescue. It turns out that Marcy May...Martha has been missing from normal society for quite some time. The rub is, Martha is on the run from her former adoptee-cult family that took her in after the death of her mother and the assumed abandonment of her big sister. Its pretty obvious right off the bat that Martha has made a career out of making some very poor life choices and even worse moral decisions...these that involve her new family...they will cost her dearly.

The film makes a habit of scattering Martha's mind through sexual scarring; social anxiety, and even worse...total detachment from "normalcy" and day-to-day life. This really comes into play with Martha's properly adjusted Brit brother-in-law/sister's new husband Ted (Hugh Dancy). The guy just can't grapple with her sexually free side...and to be honest...hell, neither could I.

There are several "jarring scenes" that I admit to being totally uncomfortable with. It becomes gradually apparent that this poor girl has been taken to the limit and is utterly and irreparably broken from it all. The inductee ceremony of the cult itself is almost unbearable for her...but to make it worse, she herself begins to perform it in an almost "motherly way" by breaking in the arriving female runaways to convert them into members. She adopts the ritual almost as if it were second nature just a few months after she herself was "ceremoniously raped".

I kid you not...after getting all cozy with John Hawke's cult leader Patrick and some of the other "lunicidal members" of Martha's adoptive family...midways through this film...I developed what I can only describe as a case of the good ole' fashioned "hee-bee gee-bee's".

What begins to settle in with the viewer is that fleeing from her cult family and its persuasive leader to her guilt-addled sister Lucy is most probably going to be the undoing of them all. The end amazing. No. That's the wrong word. The end is chilling. After Martha's sister and her husband have gone as far as they can with Martha's delusional, separatist behaviors...their only option is therapy. Martha agrees due to her paranoia. Too many bumps in the night and visions and dreams of being hunted have brought Martha Marcy May Marlene to the same conclusion...I NEED HELP.

It's only then, on the way to the psychologist that WE all realize...there is no help and there is certainly no way out for Martha. She is indeed suffering from reality and not her delusional paranoiacs...Patrick has found her.

The end.

This one's 100% fresh from my perspective.

It's actually on that level of plain that the "Silence of the Lambs" rests on for me. There's not a mask or a bunch of gore...but it definently gets into your head.

It's a must see...but it's a must see with the lights on.