Chilling and terrifying. A beautiful and powerful film about the mental destruction wrought by cults; it will make your skin crawl.

Kudos to Elizabeth Olsen, who keeps her performance mostly subtle. There're plenty of places where she might have over-acted, but instead we get a lot of quiet body language and facial expressions to communicate her fear, confusion, and unease.

Equally terrific is John Hawkes (who also rocked a slightly different kind of character in Winter's Bone) as the cult…

Part of the No Rewatch November 2012 Project.

Movies usually don't affect me as much as this one did. Without any real sense of force on the part of the filmmaker, he created something that sinks into you, scares you, and then breaks your heart. Or maybe it's the other way around. It's taken me a while to figure out what I wanted to say about it and I'm still not sure anything I say will mean anything next to…

Cults in movies are rarely subtle; they deal with larger than life crazy leaders, overt physical and mental abuse and normally end in a blood bath. Martha Marcy Mar Marlene is not that film, it is far more suggestive than explicit and keeps much of its ‘action’ off screen. The subtlety works in its favour, there is a sense of dislocation and even disorientation during the film that puts the audience in a similar mental state to Martha. The non-linear…

Sean Durkin makes his directorial debut with the psychological thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene. The film received its theatrical release on 3rd February 2012, but premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and won Durkin the Dramatic Directing Award.

Elizabeth Olsen is the star of the film; playing the lead role of Martha/Marcy May. She is a character who has recently escaped the clutches of an evil cult and is attempting to settle herself back in to reality. However, her…

What’s that noise? Oh it’s just my jaw dropping and hitting the floor…

What a film.

Martha Marcy May Marlene is a film that through subtleties and flashbacks creates tension and uneasiness that I have only ever experienced before with Dogtooth. It covers the mental sanity of the lead protagonist as she struggles with a life she wants to live, yet keeps finding herself remembering the life she once lived. Not only that, but her old life seems to be…

The last time I saw John Hawkes in something was in Me And You And Everyone We Know and as is the case with everyone who was involved with that film, they are all guilty by association with Miranda July. I am prepared to hear the case to absolve him of his crime after Martha Marcy May Marlene, however.

This psychological drama, which sees Elizabeth Olsen fleeing from a secluded cult and taking refuge with her sister and her husband…

Ambiguity can be a taboo word in cinema. A word that can scare off viewers. A word that frustrates audiences who want their movies to have a clear plot structure with a definitive ending. And a word that has recently seen a backlash from certain critics, accusing filmmakers from using ambiguity as a cop-out for their films having a non-ending. If you fall into any of the above, you may find this Sundance winning picture, from first time director Sean…

The December Challenge: Film 22

Trailer

I went into this film blind and I suggest you do the same if you want to experience it at its best. If you’re yet to watch this film, I’d highly recommend avoiding this review until you do…

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So, what’s in a name? Perhaps this is the most important question that Martha Marcy May Marlene poses. In a World in which we are increasingly defined by our online persona and the identities…

Elizabeth Olsen gives a thoughtful and quietly powerful performance as Martha, a troubled soul adrift, trying to find her place in the world. Craving acceptance and understanding - and, underneath, help - but never finding it.

The film constantly inter-cuts back and forth from her seeking refuge from straight society by joining a cultish commune, and trying to reconnect with her sister after fleeing the cult. The fractured way of telling the story, along with the hazy vibe many of…