Sound of My Voice

I saw Sound of My Voice at its SXSW following its premiere at Sundance. It is a weird little film about a two documentary filmmakers investigating Maggie - a cult leader who claims to have traveled back from the future. It was made on a shoestring budget which can be seen in some of its sound and editing. While the film is a decent first effort by some talented amateur filmmakers, it feels oddly unfinished. The acting is okay, but nothing spectacular. The script is a classic presentation of the one of the oldest of cinematic and literary conflicts between faith and reason. Do you believe that Maggie is a time traveler or is she a fraud? The journey is perhaps more interesting than where it ultimately ends up. The trip to that end is worthwhile and really quite creepy and disturbing at times. Maggie is a perplexing enigma and the cult's beliefs and rituals are quite mind-boggling.

The cult members seem quite willing to believe anything in the existential quest to give their lives some meaning. They seem to want to be led somewhere and Maggie is very willing to take them. In that sense one can ask what the real difference is between a cult and an established religion. Many scholars would say not that much other than how long they've been around. The final twist is ultimately not all that shocking or truly expected. Still, a good first effort that may allow the filmmakers to move on to bigger and better stuff.

I saw this at the 2012 Palm Springs International Film Festival. An LA journalist and his girlfriend Peter (Christopher Denham) as Peter and Nicole Vicius as Lorna go underground to investigate a cult led by a woman who claims she's from the future. Brit Marling stars as Maggie, the mysterious cult leader with Richard Wharton as Klaus, her dedicated right hand man who brings the members and potential members of the the small group of followers to Maggie's home where she conducts meetings in her basement. Zal Batmanglij directs and co-wrote the script with Marling. Nice music from Rostam Batmanglij with a good-looking production value thanks to cinematographer Rachel Morrison and production designer Scott Enge. This was originally conceived as a 10 part webisode which is why the annoying and unexplainable numbers from one to ten keep popping up every few minutes. Fox Searchlight bought this and turned it into a theatrical release where it debuted as a big hit at the Sundance Film Festival last year. This comes across as more like a TV pilot for some Sci-Fi channel series than a movie. Even if a sequel to it were made as a film, it would spend the entire film just trying to explain and fill in the many unanswered story line subplots and backgrounds. Just too many loose ends here to a semi-interesting story that takes you nowhere. Would probably make a good TV series but this as a film fall flat. I would give this a 6.0 out of 10.

If you are into films that are original and make you think as you leave the theater, this is the film to see while it is still in theaters. Christopher Denham and Nicole Vicius portray a couple attempting to infiltrate and expose a cult led by Brit Marling's Maggie but find themselves in too deep.

The film, presented with little back story and minor music cues leaves only the actors and scenes to bring the emotion and interest. All the actors do a good job with the material and if you go with the scenario being presented it's quite engrossing. The end result is a film that forces the viewer to do some of the heavy lifting to determine if Maggie is who she says she is or if it is all a scam.

Having seen "Another Earth" and "The East" in which Brit Marling is both the star and a co-author (plus "Arbitrage" where she just has a support part), I wanted to see "Sound Of My Voice" which she co-wrote at the same time as "Another Earth" and again provides her with a leading role. As with "The East", the other co-writer and director is her friend Zal Batmanglij and, as with "Another Earth" and "THe East". she was also a co-producer. Clearly Marling is a bright and ambitious actress who is not going to wait for good roles to be offered to her, but determined to craft them herself.

"Sound Of My Voice" was always going to have a limited appeal, since it is so incredibly low budget and markedly slow, but I found it original and mesmerising as it tells the story of Maggie who is either a visitor from the future with some important insights and messages or a complete fraud who is creating a dangerous cult. Out to expose her are Peter (Christopher Denham) and Lorna (Nicole Vicius) who want to make a revelatory documentary but find that Maggie is harder to read and to expose than they imagined. It is a pleasure to find a plot that is different and thought-provoking and Marling is definitely a woman to watch.

I could spend 3hrs writing a review on how many holes there are in this movie. The acting is sub-par and the plot is beyond terrible. Do yourself a favour and shove a fork in your eyes before "viewing" this movie it may actually improve it. The bland, jittery visual "realism" can't counteract overheated performances of tin-eared dialogue, which strain for pulp but often land at soap.Holds your attention for a while, but fails to build much suspense as it races toward a predictable climax. It probably would have worked better as a series of Webisodes, which reportedly was the original plan.In the end, the film doesn't add up to much of anything, but its individual parts are sometimes greater than its whole.