Martha Marcy May Marlene

Elizabeth Olsen's acting in Martha Marcy May Marlene is really fantastic (it may or may not be her first feature film, not sure which she did first this or Silent House). Her acting combined with the background we get make it easy to see how someone could be drawn into a cult - and stay for so long despite the abusiveness.

The interactions between Martha, her sister and her brother-in-law are downright strange at times but not in a 'hunh?' way at all. They're strange in a way that actually makes perfect sense for the characters and the experiences they've had.

I was really disappointed by the very, very, very end of the film - but I liked the other 100 or so minutes enough that I can forgive it (or forget about it). That and I really can't wait to see Elizabeth Olsen in something else.

Moments after the credits began, I knew Elizabeth Olsen was destined for the Oscar red carpet for her work in Martha Marcy May Marlene. It was a quiet thriller I knew very little about content wise before hand, but knew all about the acclaim it has received since premiering at Sundance and Cannes earlier this year. When it came to the Toronto International Film Festival, it was one of the first films I clamoured for tickets for. And now I know why.

Martha (Olsen) has fled an abusive cult lead by Patrick (John Hawkes). After years of being off-the-grid, she calls her estranged sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) to pick her up from a bus shelter. Lucy brings her to the lakeside cottage she shares with her new husband Ted (Hugh Dancy), where they are to spend some much needed time away from their lives in the city. But as Martha tries to adjust back to a normal life, she is continually haunted by the memories of her life in the cult.

I was initially underwhelmed walking out of Sean Durkin's debut feature, loving Olsen's performance but not much else. But as the days have gone on, I continually find myself obsessing on every moment of Martha Marcy May Marlene. Despite the backwoods feel and its atmospheric similarities to last year's Best Picture nominee Winter's Bone, this film is just simply unmissable. It is deeply unsettling throughout, and one of the few films that succeed in making the audience deeply uncomfortable. I usually find myself shifting in my seat from boredom. Here, I was shifting just because of how quietly terrified and incredibly disgusted I was with what was going on on-screen. It is a moody piece, but one that sticks with you and scares you more every time you talk and think about it. And it is that feeling, that earnest inner torment that keeps bringing me back and appreciating it more and more.

Durkin brilliantly frames the film in a similar vein to Memento, jumping back and forth between Martha at her sister's cottage in the present and her life in the cult in the past. He weaves in and out of the timelines with care, never once confusing the audience. We simply watch as Martha tries to get on with her life, but keeps finding things that remind her of moments she spent in the cult. He frames the story entirely around her, allowing her unreliability to throw the story into off-putting and disturbing directions. I found myself simply stunned by some of the unbelievable things that occur without warning. Nothing too horrific physically happens, but Durkin makes the implications of what is even more so. More impressive is how no one thing in the film feels insignificant. They all just add up on top of each other magnificently, and help drive the paranoia that plagues Martha from scene to scene, just as much if not more than it does for the audience.

Olsen has appeared in a few films before her work here, but this is an incredibly impressive true debut film for her. Her performance is simply unbelievable and unmissable. Watching her transformation from naïve teenager to paranoid, PTSD victim on-screen is one of the few absolutely amazing moments of film we have had this year. It is made even better by the fact that the film is not even told in sequence, so we are forced to watch her navigate between the depictions with relative ease. Watching her character's arch blossom into something terrifying is something that has become truly rare for such a young, unaccomplished actress. But she makes it work, and forces the audience to never take their eyes off her. She just ups the ante with every scene, and undercuts every actor who she shares the screen with. She is magnetic, and commands the screen with such strength that you would never even pretend to imagine that she is related to the Olsen Twins. Whatever doubts I may have had about the film did not even come close to quashing her compelling and spectacular performance.

Hawkes continues to prove what a remarkable supporting player he is with his work as the leader of the cult. He is always frightening and nightmarish from the very beginning, but seeing him differing forms of sincerity make him a genuinely scary villain. We practically scream at the screen before and after what he puts Martha (or as he calls her, Marcy May) through, and his performance is one of the key reasons why the film is so vividly unsettling. Watching Hawkes playing the guitar and serenading her with a tune he wrote "about her", may go down as one of the most horrific scenes in film history.

Paulson and Dancy do a fairly great job in their thankless roles as Martha's actual family. They help propel the film forward and make Olsen's role all the more fantastic, but I found that they were not given all that much to do outside of helping move the story forward. Paulson does get some very juicy moments, but I think their roles could have been all the better if they had so much more to do. They just seemed like mere plot devices more so than anything else.

While there is still something I still cannot quite describe that holds Martha Marcy May Marlene back from being the best film of the year, I cannot stop thinking about how powerful and great it really is. It is an ambiguous film that stays with you long after you leave the theatre and one that packs one of the single best performances of the year. This is an incredible directorial debut for Durkin, and an even better one for Olsen. Missing this film when it hits theatres is quite simply unacceptable.

8.5/10.

Elizabeth Olsen is surprisingly dour and convincing as the main character - Martha/Marcy May/Marlene Lewis. When I read that she was the sister of the Olsen twins I wasn't sure what to expect - but she displayed none of the saccharine characteristics of Mary Kate and Ashley. She is striking-looking - perhaps this is enhanced by the beautiful cinematography of this movie. John Hawkes, as Patrick, the leader of the cult family, is great. Creepy and bizarre - he makes you cringe but you can't take your eyes off him. Louisa Krause, who played the freaked-out high school prostitute in The Babysitters, is also fun to watch as Zoe, the seeming Godsend of a friend to Martha/Marcy May in the cult family, but who is actually just as creepy as Patrick. The discomfort that Martha brings to Lucy and Ted (Sarah Paulson and Hugh Dancy) - the real-family sister and brother-in-law - is palpable, even if it is what makes the story kind of a bummer overall. The dense forests, fertile farmland, and beautiful lake are characters themselves. Martha's connection with them brings her otherwise ethereal (or maybe just spaced out or tweaked-by-something unknown) character to earth - for me it made her someone I could like and feel sympathy for, even when her relationship with Patrick and Zoe inspired not much.

Sean Durkin's first feature is quite the trip. Durkin's sensibility as a director shines with this film, and shows undeniable promise. The really crazy thing about this film is that it's quietness is only juxtaposed by the really messed up things that are happening in the plot. An intriguing analytical mess of reality, memory, and fantasy, Martha Marcy May Marlene is about a paranoia, an extreme desire to escape the past, though it always comes back to haunt you. It is the isolation and the trouble that comes with that, that Martha really suffers from-- the cult has a certain way of thinking and the film geniously explores the psychological persuasion into a way of thinking…the way that the cult tries to make their ethics and morality universal is a terrifying, and intriguing thing. Elizabeth Olsen does a helluva job as Martha, giving her dewey eyed complexity, both bewilderment, shock, disgust, and intrigue. She gives quiet moments great momentum, and is an actress to keep an eye on. Jody Lee Lipes' cinematography is eerily distant and then uncomfortably close; the mixed bag reflects Martha's psyche in an interesting way. The scariest thing about Martha Marcy May Marlene is that it actually could happen. It may have even benefited from taking that dive a bit further, let us know just how paranoid and altered Martha is, and especially contrasting that with the old Martha, and the only complaint I might have is that we never get to see what the original Martha was like; it is only inferred as to why she would even accept and join this group in the first place, or what exactly she was running away from. But perhaps that makes the film only more intriguing—running away brought her to this society, and of course it looks fine on the outside, with it's acceptable living conditions and always a "family' of sorts around you. But, ah, there's always more than meets the eye. B+

I'm tempted to give Martha Marcy May Marlene a higher rating than it deserves for what it could have been, not for what it is. It boasts two young talents who are showing tons of potential - director Sean Durkin and lead actress Elizabeth Olsen; Olsen's performance is subtle and effective, and Durkin's directorial work creates a strong sense of atmosphere, which is aided by the superb cinematography of Jody Lee Lipes (who also had very little prior experience in feature length films). It's a film that looks and sounds great, but unfortunately it doesn't mesh into a satisfying experience.

It's probably because there's so much potential and so much to explore, and so little of it is actually brought to fruition, that I left the film with a bitter taste of a missed opportunity. The cult, for example, is fascinating, seductive and nightmarish, and John Hawkes delivers outstandingly, but on closer inspection it looks like a perfectly generic hippie cult of the classic Manson prototype, and we get no hints of what their philosophy actually is, or about the personalities of any of the members. The same goes for the relationship between Martha, her sister and her brother in law, and most of all the ending, which suggests some very interesting subjects which the rest of the movie doesn't really explore.

To be clear: I don't object to open endings or films that leave a lot of information out to allow viewer interpretation, but in this case I felt it was done as a cover up for lack of decision on Durkin's part - a flawed script that doesn't really feel complete. I'll definitely check out his work in the future, but this film isn't quite there yet.