“MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE”Written and Directed by Sean Durkin
** ½ (two and a half stars)
Once the house lights in the theater began to brighten, I scratched my head in confusion and found myself doing something that I typically do not do when I exit a film: I asked two fellow patrons what they thought of this experience we had all traveled through together. The two older women were visibly affected, one perhaps a bit more shaken than the other, and they each provided me with their feelings, to which I still continued to scratch my head and mentally ask them, “Why?’
Writer/Director Sean Durkin’s “Martha Marcy May Marlene” is the type of psychological drama I tend to gravitate towards with its themes of a person’s shifting and deteriorating sense of reality. Yet, the world Durkin creates, while appropriately bleak, is overly and self-consciously languid and enigmatic to the point where it was almost engulfed by its own smothering mysteriousness. That is not to say that the film doesn’t have its merits. On the contrary, there is very much to admire about it. So much so that you may be curious as to why my rating is a bit less than enthusiastic. I have to admit that as I ruminate over the film, I am torn and am wrestling with my feelings over it. But I keep returning to this feeling: by the film’s abrupt conclusion, my first response was to wonder just what the point of the whole thing actually was, if there was one at all. A harsh impression but it was indeed how I felt. But then, something began to take hold and I will now go forward with my thought process for your reading pleasure.
“Martha Marcy May Marlene” stars Elizabeth Olsen in her film debut as Martha, who, at the film’s start, is seen escaping what turns out to be an abusive cult located somewhere in the Catskill Mountains. After a meal at a small diner, Martha finds a pay phone and places a call to her older sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson), who soon arrives and brings Martha back to the luxurious summer home she shares with her husband Ted (an excellent Hugh Dancy). But, re-assimilation is not easy for Martha as the physical and psychological damage she has endured threatens her relationship with the only family she remains to have as well as possibly upending any potential future she may wish to have in the world outside of the cult.
The film then unfolds over the alternating parallel tracks of illustrating Martha’s life within the cult and her life as she struggles to reconnect with the real world, converging slowly over the course of the proceedings. Now, I do not wish to say terribly much more as I feel the fullness of its possible success lies within the viewer not knowing that much about it, and I feel that even counts towards even trying to explain the meaning behind the film’s alliterative title. But I will say that at the film’s best, Durkin weaves a disturbing, haunting spell, which does go to great lengths to create empathy for Martha especially as her search for stability grows increasingly futile and tragically inevitable.
Much of the press surrounding this film has been focused upon the high quality of Elizabeth Olsen’s performance and to that I have to agree whole heartedly. Olsen (the younger sister of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen) is indeed the real deal but not in a show stopping, firecracker, “she leaps off of the screen” fashion. Olsen carries a brooding intensity mostly seen through her piercing stare, which Durkin wisely presents often. It is a stare that not only draws you closer and dares you to not watch her, it is a stare you will often find yourself lost inside of as you attempt to piece together the sad trajectory of her troubled life. Olsen’s full performance really struck me as it is simultaneously feral and fragile. Martha exists as a perpetually abused domesticated animal and the effect is quietly devastating.
Martha is a young woman who is always under some sort of control, whether through the cult or during her stay with her extremely parental sister Lucy and yes, we do witness and are fully aware of the levels of physical, sexual and mostly, psychological abuse she endures throughout the course of her story. Olsen finds the various levels of Martha’s mental state so seemingly effortless and convincing especially as the story’s threads begin to converge and our perceptions, along with Martha’s begin to blur.
Throughout “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” Martha is shown in various states of mental repose or falling in and out of the stages of sleep, sometimes falling asleep in one story thread only to awaken in the other thread. I found this to be one of Durkin’s most successful tactics as he presents a psychological world that is ever shifting as memories phase into dreams, dreams phase into memories, and reality itself is entirely unknown. But, the way Durkin accomplishes this feat is not nearly as virtuosic as anything seen in say Darron Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” (2010). With “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” I felt able to take in every moment at face value, as I think you would as well. But, that being said, I am slowly realizing that the film may be deceptively straightforward. Perhaps some of the sequences we are watching may be how Martha perceives her world, especially as she has become so damaged. It is through these aspects where “Martha Marcy May Marlene” works best and any accolades Elizabeth Olsen is bound to receive during awards season are justifiably deserved.
Sarah Paulsen is Elizabeth Olsen’s equal with her performance as Lucy. As difficult a task it had to have been for Olsen to portray Martha, Paulsen does not have it much easier as she has to essentially fill in many plot holes Durkin has asked the audience to essentially fill in regards to Martha’s backstory and family history. Lucy is indeed demonstrative, parental and more than a little superior towards Martha but she is loving and endlessly worried about Martha’s well being. Mostly, and in addition to balancing her marriage to Ted plus trying to conceive a child, Lucy is desperately attempting to alleviate and sense of guilt she continues to carry as she departed Martha’s life of leaving perhaps during the very developmental and psychological stage when Martha may have needed Lucy the most.
For a moment, I would like to return to Roger Ebert's memoir Life Itself by recounting a tidbit from the chapter entitled “My New Job,” during which he discusses his origins as a film critic. In that chapter, Ebert delivers a quotation from the late, great Gene Siskel in regards to the purpose within a film critic’s profession. “Siskel described his job as ‘covering the national dream beat,’ because if you pay attention to the movies they will tell you what people desire and fear.” If what Siskel stated is indeed the case, our nation has been suffering some very dark fears and dreams indeed.
Dear readers, I want to ask you what you think is happening in our society where we can have films like “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” Writer/Director Jeff Nichols’ “Take Shelter,” Writer/Director Kevin Smith’s “Red State” and Director Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia” (which I have yet to see) all arriving at this point in time. These films seem to illustrate a consciousness trapped in a state of restless anxiety due to our current political and economic landscape. We seem to be dealing with a not so buried fear that any frivolous pursuits, any wrong step will be met with rapid destruction for the wolves are always at the door, threatening any sense of security we all wish to obtain and keep. And even more frightening, sometimes that wolf at the door may live deep within the confines of our own minds, threatening to unravel.
In my mind, “Martha Marcy May Marlene” feels to be of a piece with the superlative “Take Shelter” and the brutal “Red State” as all three films share themes of elusive safety, the desperate need for family connections and increasingly fractured psyches. With “Red State” in particular, “Martha Marcy May Marlene” deals with dangerous Father figure/cult leaders. Where “Red State” depicted the fire and brimstone demise of a cult, “Martha Marcy May Marlene” goes to great lengths to depict the inner workings of a cult, its structure, how it functions and the levels to which quietly charismatic cult leader Patrick (the sinister John Hawkes) manipulates, controls and abuses his flock.
But, for me, “Martha Marcy May Marlene” falters where “Take Shelter” and “Red State” grandly succeeded mainly because of Sean Durkin’s direction, while creating a murky atmosphere, at times seemed trapped within a certain storytelling inertia, which made the film as a whole lose its momentum. It just felt to be too self-congratulatory. An exercise in stylistic ambiguity. An exercise it just fell in love with at my expense. I guess many passages of it felt to be more than a little forced and proudly unwilling to find any release to its tension. This was a quality I loved in “Take Shelter” but it worked completely because of the story that film was trying to tell. But for “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” that particular approach was not nearly as successful. There were just too many scenes for my taste that felt to be overly cryptic as if characters were purposefully not saying things solely because the imaginary audience was out there somewhere watching. I guess I was feeling a bit too aware of the conventions and not feeling that the film was something more lived in. And by the film’s end, as I previously stated, it all felt to be a slap in the face. What was the purpose? Why was I watching this story and what did this filmmaker want for me to leave with?
Obviously, after all of these words upon words, I do believe that Durkin did indeed want me to leave with some real impression of his story and film, which admittedly did take some time to take hold of me. Which is OK as not every film needs to be an immediate experience. “Martha Marcy May Marlene” is a provocative film to be true and I think that some of you who choose to experience it will find yourselves enraptured by it. If you are indeed one of those people, please do check back in with me as I would love to talk to you about it.
And you know, isn’t having a film to discuss and debate over a more than worthwhile quality in a film released during our age of sequels, re-boots and re-imaginings?
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