REVIEW: MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

Absolutely loved this film.  If this slow burn was any slower, it would have a walker.  The always-lurking threat of danger from the cult had my heart racing.  I loved how Durkin's use of dual narrative kept us wondering for a couple seconds just where exactly we were in the story (is Martha experiencing this or remembering it).  I really don't want to get into any more details because I don't know how many folks on here have actually seen the film.  But yes, definitely recommend it.

Olsen's performance makes up for the existence of her sisters.

I've ready people saying nothing happened for two hours. Are you kidding?! This movie was non-stop tense. 

Agree on Olsen. Wasn't going to get into it in my review, but she's mega-hot.

The lack of a decisive ending to the film jarred me at first, but I've since come around and decided that it's consistent with the dreamlike quality of the movie. Dreams don't end. They stop.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bradito 

The lack of a decisive ending to the film jarred me at first, but I've since come around and decided that it's consistent with the dreamlike quality of the movie. Dreams don't end. They stop.

Pretty interesting. I'm sort of coming around on the ending, it definitely fits the film. But I'm not there yet. Martha, in my opinion, is a character in need of some sort of resolution. I'm also of the opinion that the cult stuff at the end was her psychosis taking over. The car might have had to stop, but I don't think that dude was ever really following them.

Why let her go in the beginning? I can see why Martha would be afraid, but knowing what we know about the cult they don't strike me as the type that would go out and kidnap her. They need minds that can be broken. Martha challenged them to a point, which is why she left when she did. Also, she's was bugfuck terrified at that point.

My audience hated this movie. Then again, it was a big crowd of DC seniors (I was the youngest person in the room. Not exaggerating). If it wasn't "slow," "boring," or "weird," it was "disturbing." At the discussion time afterward, I asked what a movie about a cult is supposed to be, if not disturbing.

The ending sends you out on a perfect note of uncertainty and dread. That's what Olsen's character is feeling, and the whole film is about putting the viewer in her mind and allowing you to experience her perspective; to answer the question of that last shot would take that away and betray what came before, stylistically and thematically. For that reason I also don't see her as a character who needs a resolution, because she's not one who will get one anytime soon, if ever. I agree it is dreamlike, and perhaps the dream is ending for the audience - thus allowing the feeling you felt just before waking up to linger - but for the character the dream (nightmare, really) won't end.

Re: would the cult really come kidnap her? I agree it's more likely just paranoia, but I don't think it would be entirely impossible or out of character for them. We've seen what they're capable of, criminally speaking. We know that, despite a moment of clarity that allowed her to escape, they are capable of breaking her, and even though she runs away the effects of their brainwashing linger. If they could do it once, they could probably get her back under their control. And given the megalomaniacal, controlling nature of cult leaders I can imagine them wanting her back over sheer egotistical pride. It's unlikely they'd go to too much trouble for one person when there seem to always be other people to prey on and a generally high amount of turnover, but I do think it's plausible enough to make the last third genuinely ambiguous and frightening even outside the confines of the character's damaged psyche.

I'm going to join in on the love for this movie -- one of the best of the year, for sure. I actually walked out kind of doubting my hold on reality, deeply unsettled with my own possible malleability. In that way, it is the perfect horror movie: one that doesn't just frighten you, but actually gets into your head and questions how we think. This movie forces us to examine the arbitrariness of socialization and how easily that process can become indoctrination. Hawkes' own half-baked existential philosophy, very intentionally I think, comes across as almost as coherent and well-considered (that is, not at all) as Martha's sister and her husband's rigid adherence to the social structure that's been laid out for them, although obviously with added cold-blooded sadistic maliciousness. The readiness with which his followers accept his views is a very scary thing to witness, and in that way perhaps it is reflective of how people everywhere "accept" ideas just because they're being pushed towards them by social forces.

I was also horribly mistrustful of the people around me as I left the theater, and even as I got home I was questioning my own safety from some unprovoked attack. The moral "blankness" of Hawkes' followers is just so damn chilling.

I am more or less 100% on board for the ending -- it always sort of sucks to get a non-ending, but here I think it's earned and really enhances the film. With something like Take Shelter it's more of a gimmick, but here it's all about (like everyone's said) totally embracing the uncertainty and unreality of Martha's perspective and drawing the audience further into it. The technique, as Tim Kelly says in his review, is so damn cinematic -- not in terms of what we would usually consider cinematic, which is big images and sweeping camera gestures, but just in terms of using style very carefully to elicit an emotional response. We don't see that nearly enough these days.