Director/Writer: Sean Durkin
Starring: Elizabeth Olsen,
Sarah Paulson, Hugh Dancy, John Hawkes, Louisa Krause, Brady Corbett, Maria
Dizzia, Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner
Yesterday, I reviewed
Elizabeth Olsen’s latest theatrical release, “Silent House”. Today, I’ll look
at the movie that placed her name on so many people’s lips last fall.
Many thought the Olsen twins’
little sister deserved an Oscar nomination for her work in the independent
drama “Martha Marcy May Marlene”. One of the reasons she may not have gotten
enough votes is because people had such a hard time remembering the exact name
of the title. That’s a lot of ‘M’ names, and there are so many others that are
very similar.
The movie tells the story of
a young woman, played by Olsen, who has recently left a cultist commune. Her
name is Martha. At the commune everyone called her Marcy May, but to outsiders
of the commune she was known as Marlene. The renaming of the women in the
commune served two purposes. It stripped them of their former identities,
leaving them to be redefined and dependant on the leader of the commune. It
also made it harder for them to be found by family members. The leader, played
enigmatically and with just enough charm by John Hawkes, plays off the name
change as a flattering flirtation, but the rules of the commune are very
strict.
The movie takes place mostly
after Martha has left, feeling that the leader deceived her about the true
purpose of his philosophies. She’s
taken refuge with her sister and her husband. The cult has damaged her psyche
quite severely. Many of her actions appear insane to her sister and
brother-in-law. Mostly, Martha fears the cultists will come for her.
The filmmakers effectively
execute what I have described; and Olsen’s performance deserves the recognition
it got upon the theatrical release of the movie. But, her post cult ordeal isn’t
really all that surprising. Everything she goes through makes sense. What I don’t
understand is how she got involved in the cult in the first place. We see her
introduction to the commune through flashbacks. We witness her role on the farm
on which they make their lives, but we never get the sales pitch. Just what
does this place have to offer these people? What hole are these lost souls who
get swept up in the cult trying to fill in their lives? The most we ever get
from the leader is a song he writes for Marcy May and performs in a barn for
the entire group. This serenade seems hardly sufficient for her to subject
herself to the life she lives there.
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