Sound of My Voice

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".

I read the synopsis for this movie and thought it sounded very interesting. My conclusion: Just read the plot line like a miniature novel and you can appreciate the story much more. I didn't much care for the movie in comparison. I felt it could've been done much better.

I agree with the other reviewer calling the ending a cop-out. There was just so much missing with the movie. It also would've been much better with character actors that had more charisma, particularly with Maggie who is supposed to be incredibly charismatic but just comes off incredibly weird (I'm sure it's sort of the point, but couldn't she have been at least a little charming since it calls it?).

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.

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.

I saw this film at SXSW where it was playing following the film's premiere at Sundance. The film is about 2 documentary filmmakers who are determined to expose a cultleader, played by Brit Marling, as a fraud. The more time they spend with the cult, however, the more the filmmaker's relationship to each other is tested -- one continues to dismiss the cult as a hoax while the other considers the possibility, ever so slight, that the central claim of the cult leader may be true. Unlike many low-budget Indie films, the pacing was superb -- there was never a dull moment that made the film feel slow. This is partly due to the film's well-crafted suspense - we, as an audience, are constantly asking ourselves the same question that the protagonists ask: could the cult leader possibly be telling the truth? This film leaves you guessing until the end and when the answer is finally revealed, you are left with a desire for more. The only weakness is a few confusing scenes - (e.g., an FBI investigator debugs her hotel room without explanation. A young girl behaves strangely in class and its never revealed why.) According to interviews, director Zal Batmanglij is working on a trilogy that will continue the story -- very exciting news. Perhaps most satisfying about this film is that it shows that you can make a compelling story come to life on a shoe-string budget. I think this film would play well to mainstream audiences and it deserves a wider release.