The title of this newly released psychological thriller may be a mouthful, sure, but really the message is quite simple. Do not join a cult. Cults are bad.
In Sean Durkin’s debut film, the story follows Martha (played by talented newcomer Elizabeth Olsen) who has recently escaped a cult in upstate New York and has moved in with her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and her husband Ted (Hugh Dancy) in their marvelous, glass getaway house on the lake. The film, which was also written by Durkin, threads back and forth in hazy colored vignettes between Martha’s time spent on the farmhouse as part of the cult and her attempt at assimilation back into a normal state of being in her sisters home. Her sister and her husband are uptight Manhattanites who don’t have a clue how to deal with Martha’s erratic and dazed personality, or even know why it’s there since Martha refuses to reveal where she’s been for the past three years. In reality, the girl clearly remains brainwashed, walking around the house like an angel haired ghost, taking tiny, bird-like bites of fancy dinners, and doing things she doesn’t consider odd like taking a dip in the lake completely nude or crawling into bed with Lucy and Ted while they are having sex.
The cult Martha escaped from, where she was rechristened Marcy May, was home to a handful of lost twenty-something-year-olds, all blonde and tan and fit men and women, who helped out on the farm. All the women were also drugged and repeatedly raped by the cults leader Patrick (a frighteningly thin, albeit incredibly chilling John Hawkes), an experience they were told was beautiful and their duty as part of “the family”. The cult members skinny dipped together, fornicated with one another, and lazed around the farm in white sundresses and light washed jeans, a disturbing utopia tucked away in the mountains somewhere. When money got tight, the group would break into mansions on the lake and steal. After a particularly frightening incident, Martha (or Marcy May) grew terrified and decided to run from the cult and into her sisters confused arms.
Overall, the movie failed to be truly compelling. Scenes dragged on, and all that mounting tension for an hour and twenty minutes never actually took us anywhere particularly exciting. It just lingered there, uncomfortably, between the overbearing soundtrack of buzzing cicadas and the sounds of lake water lapping up against the shore.
Thankfully, the performances are what carry a mostly lackluster film. For her part, Elizabeth Olsen nails a murky role with little dialogue and seemingly little direction. A promising actress, her speech and gestures bringing to mind those of a younger Maggie Gyllenhaal. The camera is, undoubtedly, infatuated with her. Scene after scene her green eyes flood the screen, a look of suppressed agony and wilting confusion across her slightly freckled, tan complexion. She is at once a child and a powerhouse. Whether she is Martha, Marcy May, or Marlene, she is a young woman who, at any time, is lost and uncertain, and this comes across the screen effortlessly. John Hawkes is a looming presence with his shifty green eyes and boyish figure, a terrifying character who both romanticizes and abuses the young girls. He is a manipulator, and a damn good one. A particularly harrowing scene is one in which Patrick plays a song for everyone called “Marcy’s Song”, an awfully creepy love song for Marcy as everyone else watches on with admiration. His voice is soothing, as are the strums of the guitar, but when you think about what he’s really singing about, you can’t help but get the chills.
Martha Marcy May Marlene definitely pulls off certain scenes and inspires commanding performances from its actors, but is it an enjoyable film that leaves you on the edge of your seat even as the credits roll? A valid attempt, but not quite.