REVIEW | Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)

A young woman named Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) escapes from a cult commune in the Catskills and seeks shelter in the vacation house of her estranged sister (Sarah Paulson) and her brother-in-law (Hugh Dancy). Then we watch as she gradually loses her mind. Mundane activities trigger memories of her two years' stay in the mountains with the cult that engages in "free love" and violence, with a dangerously charismatic leader (John Hawkes) who sings them beautiful country music at day, rapes them girls at night, and feeds them disturbingly twisted philosophies in between. Martha never tells any of this to her worried sister.

Premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, Martha Marcy May Marlene is a psychological thriller aimed to disturb and frighten you-- and at the same time impress you by the fact that the Olsen twins have a younger sister who can seriously act. Yes, she is the younger sister of Ashley and Mary Kate Olsen.

Indeed, Elizabeth Olsen (who doesn't look anything like the twins) gives a riveting performance in the movie, and we watch with fascination her role as a young woman who's had a believable first-hand experience with a small community of sickos and how the experience has transformed her. 

Olsen carries her character with maturity, credibility, and with a quiet intensity. Composed and seemingly normal on the outside, her suppressed trauma is palpable to us, and we watch  with curiosity, mild repulse, and amusement as she goes about her new life in her sister's house, sometimes startled by her bouts of strange behavior, and also sensing her increasing paranoia.

Martha Marcy May Marlene, directed by Sean Durkin (who nabbed the Best Director award at the Sundance for this film), succeeded in delivering believable characters and scenarios. John Hawkes is equally impressive in the movie, as terrifying as the uncle in  2009's Winter's Bone. And Paulson and Dancy earn our sympathy as the helpless and perplexed spectators of Martha's slow descent to insanity. However, the film is monotonous. Disturbing but monotonous. Like watching a calm and sinister body of water-- no crashing waves of emotions here. We feel the negative vibes, but we are never gripped or swept away.  The level of the psychological horror somewhat remains the same throughout the film, never throwing us off--  and there there is something unsatisfying about that, when we are not shaken to the core. Yes, there are a couple of cult scenes that are tensing and frightening, but you get over them instantly.

Martha Marcy May Marlene, in its entirety, is effectively disturbing, with impressive actors. But after the anticlimactic ending and the credits have rolled, you are left with only a faint after-taste.

2 out of 5 stars.

Trailer