Sound of My Voice

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 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.

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.

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.

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.