Toby Reynolds
Garlanded with a slew of awards, including Sundance's Grand Jury prize, writer/director Sean Durkin's assured debut, Martha Marcy May Marlene is an intense and slow-burning psychological thriller-cum-family drama, starring Elizabeth Olsen as the eponymous protagonist. Boasting uniformly fine performances from all its cast, this effective little chiller casts a naturalistic view on the consequences for cult escapee Martha. Combining cleverly edited extended flashbacks to her 'lost' two years, with her present day refuge of her newly married older yuppie sister's (Paulson) Connecticut lakeside home, the film sensitively explores Martha's painful adjustment to the normal world, replete with episodes of bizarre behaviour (at one point she blithely clambers into bed with her copulating sibling and husband) and increasing paranoia (hallucinations, etc), as she struggles to leave her traumatic past behind.
Durkin manages to coax a superb performance from Olsen in her big-screen debut, her Martha essaying hidden bewilderment, mixed with new-age arrogance, at different turns as she is forced to negotiate a new relationship with both her put-upon sister and her sister's new Brit workaholic husband (Dancy). Switching back and forth to her time on the seemingly blissful rural commune in the Catskills, Durkin builds up a slow menace to the proceedings as he gradually and skilfully reveals the dark culture of rape, male domination and eventual murder that the cult begins to move into, courtesy of its charismatic but dangerous leader Patrick (a supremely creepy Hawkes) whose behaviour is strongly reminiscent of one C Manson. The assuredly fluid editing assists strongly in this, coupled with Jody Lee Lipes' suitably moody cinematography, as the film reveals Martha to be much more than a hapless victim in relation to her situation. As the film moves towards its suitably downbeat ending, the temptation must have been strong to throw in some standard Hollywood stalk-and-slash tactics; wisely Durkin manages to resist this, and keeps the audience guessing as to the eventual fate of Martha. In case you were wondering, Marcy May is the name the cult gives her, a strategy employed by real cults to ensure that their new devotees are less likely to leave their new 'family'. With appropriately eerie music and a recurring theme of water being both a cleanser and a menace, Martha Marcy May Marlene is an impressively unsettling effort from a director to watch out for in the future. Recommended.
Photo: The Rolling Picture
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