Martha Marcy May Marlene review

Patrick: You know that death is the most beautiful part of life, right? Death is beautiful because we all fear death. And fear is the most amazing emotion of all because it creates complete awareness. It brings you to now, and it makes you truly present. And when you're truly present, that's nirvana. That's pure love. So death is pure love. 

Director: Sean Durkin
(2012)

2012 seems like an incredibly clustered year for films based on cults and organised religion. Most notably is P.T Andersons The Master, a powerful, intimate epic shot in razor sharp 70mm and featuring peerless performances from Joaquin Phoenix and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Even less renowned on the arthouse scene was Sound of My Voice, a smart and open ended drama about a cult leader who claims to have travelled back from the future. Martha Marcy May Marlene is so similar to the afore mentioned titles for a multitude of reasons. Yes, it features a ‘cult’-all 3 of them do- but they never feel similar enough to draw serious comparisons when it comes down to themes and narrative. They're all alike for 3 reasons; strong performances from their leads, multilayered and leaving the hard work up to the audience and possessing conclusions that absolutely divide audiences straight down the middle. Make no mistake; Martha Marcy May Marlene isn’t an instantly gratifying Hollywood blockbuster.

Despite insinuating 4 characters, the names in the title of the film are technically all the same person. We open with Martha (Elizabeth Olsen), a young women who has escaped the clutches of an abusive cult. Her escape is aided by her unknowing sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and fiancé Ted (Hugh Dancy). As she struggles to regain a foothold into everyday life, we are shown flashbacks to her inception into the cult; a quaint farm in New York State. It’s in these flashbacks she is known as Marcy May, a new name given to her by the leader of the group Patrick (John Hawkes). Marlene is the name she adopts when answering the phone. Through thoughtful, fragmented editing we see her life, as well as the effects her past have had on her mental wellbeing.

MMMM is helped tremendously by some subtle, yet sublime camerawork by Jody Lee Lipes. Extreme close-ups capture the emotional crescendos of confrontation; the decision to focus almost exclusively on the face of the characters is a good one. Long takes are prevalent throughout; slow, strained zooms amplify the drama and intensities of the majority of the scenes. While this technique significantly adds to the films dark, uncomfortable themes, it becomes overused by the third act; so much so the trick loses its effectiveness.

Yet what remains constant throughout this unsettling look at cults is the performance of Elizabeth Olsen. An up and coming star, she owns the role of both Martha and Marcy May, her name while she lived with the cult. The films use of jump cuts makes her work seem so much more prominent, the emotional damage that she portrays after escaping the group is shown in its full effect. The spontaneous confident girl has her innocence warped by her experiences, making her very much 2 sides of the same coin. Essentially, Olsen is playing 2 rather different characters both of which she embodies superbly; quite simply one of the best performances of the year.

The acting prowess doesn’t cease there however, as MMMM is filled with strong, realistic performances. Just how successful these actors are isn’t initially realised, their roles don’t call for eccentricities or long, impressive speeches. Instead each character is grounded, complimenting the serious tone of the narrative. This decision is what makes Antagonist Patrick so terrifying. His lies and indoctrinations sound so true, it’s easy to understand why this group of women fall for the game that he’s selling. Just how sinister he really is isn’t fully shown, but merely hinted at with scraps of dialogue littered throughout the flashbacks, another factor that adds to his unsettling menace.

After 90 minutes of Olsen’s mesmerising performance, some strong camerawork and a dark, disturbing plot, Durkin ends his film is an incredibly unsatisfying manner. Ambiguity is a wonderful thing when correctly used, yet such technique isn’t present here. While it does fit thematically, the final shot feels abrupt and frustrating, sucking the soul out of a film that had up until this point been excellent. In retrospect this conclusion hits all the right notes, yet will cause many audience members to scratch their heads in confusion. Martha Marcy May Marlene is a great debut feature for Sean Durkin, but because of the lack of payoff in the third act, I doubt it will be a popular one.

8