Martha Marcy May Marlene

Writer-director Sean Durkin makes a slick, compelling debut with his intimate drama/psychological thriller, Martha Marcy May Marlene. The film follows Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) as she escapes from a farmhouse in the woods, and moves in with her estranged older sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and her husband, Ted (Hugh Dancy), at their huge lakeside summer house in Connecticut. The story flashes back—often through intentionally disorienting match cuts—from Martha's efforts to adjust to "normal" life, to her time with the magnetic, but dangerous, Patrick (John Hawkes) and his followers. Having been ensnared in the cult for two years, Martha is now completely lost, and often can't seem to distinguish past from present, or fantasy from reality. The story is told almost entirely from her point of view, and the movie effectively reflects the state of her thoroughly boggled mind. The film has an almost discomfitingly intimate feel, again reflecting Martha's loss of understanding of personal boundaries. Olsen perfectly captures Martha's mental and emotional fragility, and the supporting cast—particularly Hawkes as the calmly murderous Patrick—is also very strong. The cult's eventual violence might seem gratuitous at first blush, but a key to the film's tension lies in Martha's unwillingness to explain what's happened to her. Lucy's incomprehension of Martha's behavior (and of her anti-materialist rejection of Lucy and Ted's lifestyle) leads to frustration and resentment. A sense of dread—that Martha will lose her only connection to the outside world—pulsates through the work.