Review of Sound of My Voice (2011) by Walter M — 06 May 2012

"Sound of My Voice" starts with Peter(Christopher Denham), a substitute teacher, and Lorna(Nicole Vicius) driving to a house in the middle of the night. There, they shower, scrub clean, and put on hospital gowns before, along with Christine(Constance Wu) and Lam(Alvin Lam), being driven to another house where in the basement, they listen in rapt attention to Maggie(Brit Marling, who also co-wrote with director Zal Batmanglij) tell of her waking without memories in a motel bathtub. She is rescued from the streets by Klaus(Richard Wharton), now her major domo, and has recovered her memories enough to recall she is from the year 2054 but not her health which due to allergies in the present day is in a precarious state. Peter has a different opinion, intending to make a documentary to expose her as a fraud before somebody gets hurt.

"Sound of My Voice" is a marvelously ambiguous and clever future cult movie, featuring a cult actress, that is possibly about a cult.(Seriously, there were more people in that basement than at the screening I was at. Apparently, everybody else was at the other movie about a substitute teacher - "Monsieur Lazhar.") The movie uses a broad meaning of time travel that also includes going back in one's memories, getting inside the characters' heads and ours, simultaneously. All that proves is that you need James Urbaniak to make a screwy time travel movie. But since usually the words "it's bigger on the inside" have to be uttered for someone to truly believe in time travel, it's rather a case of these people wanting to be part of something bigger than themselves, as Peter points out, including himself. So, what does that say about documentary filmmakers? I just hope you know you can't knit on an airplane, anymore.