Elizabeth Olsen stars in this Sean Durkin directed psychological drama about a woman named Martha who suffers from an identity crisis when she returns to her sister Lucy’s (Sarah Paulson) life after being away for two years. During that time she was part of a sort of cult, free-love hippie community led by the mysterious and radical Patrick (John Hawkes). The film was released in 2011 and received critical acclaim, especially towards Olsen’s performance. The indie produced flick is one that I’d been interested for some time, and now that I have finally gotten around to seeing it I’m reading to share my thoughts with you.

As I said, a lot of praise was given at the time of the film’s release to Olsen’s performance, and rightfully so. Before this she had starred in small roles (in some of her elder sisters’, the Olsen twins, movies), but her breakthrough into fame came her. She is very emotional in this film, her paranoia and inner conflict is very well captured by the actress’s facial expressions, her tortured psyche shines through her outer shell. Also great is John Hawkes as the cult’s leader, a figure with very radical beliefs and questionable morality. I found it unfortunate that the film didn’t explore this character further, since he was one of the most interesting aspects of the movie, but I get that it is all about Martha’s story and giving too much focus to the Patrick character would’ve taken away some of the attention to Martha’s dilemma and trauma.

Something that I thought the film does really well is the juxtaposition of both world views, the “all-loving” hippie/communist utopia and the idyllic burgeoise world of Lucy and her husband. Through the use of non-linear storytelling we really get the sense of these two ideals colliding within Martha. It is also worth noting that the film doesn’t romanticize any of the two possibilities: as Martha comes to the cult for the first time she’s imposed a new name, namely Marcy May, a name that she didn’t choose herself, and while there she finds a kind of a new family, she’s forced to do things that she wouldn’t want to, like sharing her body with members of the community and participating in increasingly criminal acts; at the same time, the comfortable lifestyle Lucy and her husband Ted lead is shown under a superficial light and displayed as accomodated materialism and meaningless. Sure, the focus lies rather within the trauma Martha faced during her time at the cult, and it is this that gets the more negative portrayal at the end, but the counterbalance of both worlds and the fact that none is shown as perfect is what made this film so interesting to me.

On the more negative side, I thought the movie could’ve done a better job at differentiating both timelines. At some points it was hard to tell in which one we were, and while that does work sometimes by recreating the feeling of confusion Martha feels in the viewer, at others it was kind of muddying and annoying. Also, as stated before, a little more exploration into the side characters, especially Patrick, would’ve been nice, even if it extended the movie’s runtime for another 10 or 15 minutes. The film does move quite slow, and while most of the time it keeps you interested, at other moments it felt like it dragged a little bit (and yes, I do realize how ironic me saying that is, since I’m asking for more time, but I do believe a little more character development on the background characters would’ve gone a long way). And to be honest, I didn’t care too much about the film’s ending. While I am all for a film ending abrutly when you least expect it, this time I felt that it pretty much built up to nothing in particular. I’m not saying I needed a big and explosive climax, nor a resolution that ties all loose ends, but the actual final act we got I found rather lackluster for a final act (the scene in question is pretty good, just not enough to end your film with in my opinion).

“Martha Marcy May Marlene” is a very good film that sadly flew under the radar of most people as it came out back in 2011. I was interested back then but kind of forgot about it as time passed, and recently my interest resurfaced and finally saw it. I must say, I probably wouldn’t have understood many of the nuances back then, so it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing that I waited this long. I thought Olsen’s performance was great as was John Hawkes’, and the story it tells about a traumatized girl between two very different world views is compelling and thought provoking. The film was shown at Sundance at the time, where Durkin won the Best Director award. He hasn’t directed any films since then, but I’m certainly hoping that he does in the near future. To sum up, this indie film is one that more people should see, even if it does have a few flaws, because of the talent behind this and the complicated themes it handles.

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