Sound of My Voice

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.

Captivating and enigmatic, "Sound of My Voice" shows that you can effectively rack an audience's mind with a micro-budget. While many of the strange details and set-ups are left open ended, it's the kind of film that will you have talking with others trying to fill in the blanks long after you've seen it. In some ways, they plant more details than necessary in what seems to be an attempt to confuse the audience and test their attention.Overall, the actors in the film do a great job (especially Marling) and it proves to be a promising directorial debut for Zal Batmanglij. If you want something that also pulls at the mind emotionally, I would recommend "Another Earth".

For starters - I'd say that there were definitely 2 major shortcomings in Sound Of My Voice (SOMV, for sort) that prevented me from giving it more than a 5-star rating.

(1) On a scale of 1-5, Maggie (though very attractive) only scored a disappointing 2, in my books, when it came to the overall magnetism of her charisma. This ripe, young woman clearly lacked the essential character dynamics to convince me (like she was trying to convince her faithful followers in the story) that she actually came even close to coming from the year 2054.

(2) Regardless of SOMV having only a nothing-budget of just $135,000, this didn't, in any way, excuse the sometimes painfully dry quality of its storytelling.

But, of course, with that said - I am not at all disappointed that I stuck with this bizarre, little film to the very end. 'Cause (in spite of its flaws and its questions left unanswered) at the point when Peter finally met privately with Maggie, that's when the intriguing twist in the story began to take on some real shape and turn into something worth paying attention to.

Sound of My Voice was one of the best-crafted feature films at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. I was fortunate enough to secure a ticket for the screening at The Library theater, and the place was packed.

Sound of My Voice is the story of two amateur documentary filmmakers who decide to infiltrate a secretive cult run by a mysterious woman who calls herself Maggie. They want to expose the cult for reasons that become apparent later in the film. Sound of My Voice is a thriller, so it is hard to describe much without giving away key plot elements, so I will simply say that the acting is superb throughout.

The real standout is double-threat Britt Marling who not only stars as Maggie, but also co-wrote the screenplay with Zal Batmanglij (Marling also co-wrote and starred in Another Earth -- which was also a Sundance standout).

The cinematography, editing, and score lend just the right edgy feel to this film. Even though Sound of My Voice was shot on a micro-budget, it pays off better than most of the indie films one sees at your local art house. In fact, I could easily see this film crossing over to play at some commercial theaters in large cities. You will be on the edge of your seat, desperately trying to discover the truth, and when the lights come up, Sound of My Voice will both satisfy and leave you begging for more.

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.