Martha Marcy May Marlene

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT > MOVIE REVIEW

By R. Kurt Osenlund

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Oct. 27, 2011

Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) stays with her estranged sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), to recover after escaping from an abusive cult.

She may be the cute, comely younger sister of America’s favorite sweetheart twins, but Elizabeth Olsen has a face that’ll stalk your nightmares — her button nose and gleaming smile coupled with great big eyes whose stare is both lifeless and piercing. Often captured with gloomy, shadowy contrast, Olsen’s unique visage is a perfect fit for her breakout role in “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” writer/director Sean Durkins’ spooky backwoods meditation on identity, or lack thereof.

The performance from Olsen is indeed as good as you’ve heard, with the 22-year-old interpreting her multi-named title character with a mysterious professionalism that makes every alienated emotion hugely palpable.

The riddle of where Martha (or Marcy May, or Marlene) came from, and what happened to her, is what drives this Sundance favorite, and the notion that she has no place in the universe is what makes it feel like a ride on a sinking boat. Even the moderately privileged take for granted the idea of having some home to fall back on. This girl has next to nothing, a truth that’s gradually unfurled after she escapes a welcoming-turned-terrifying cult and seeks refuge with her estranged, well-to-do sister (Sarah Paulson) and brother-in-law (Hugh Dancy).

Underscoring Martha’s fractured mental state and wayward existence, Durkins slyly glides from past to present and back again, a continuous shift that offers some refreshing formal and narrative tricks. The approach allows us to get to know volatile cult leader Patrick (a typecast, but nonetheless terrific John Hawkes) alongside Martha’s sister, the parallelism implying that though she fled danger, the emotionally and socially crippled heroine is far from safe.

The hinted-at past shared by the sisters is intriguing, and it yields a heated, extremely well-played actorly duet between Olsen and Paulson. But “Martha” doesn’t contain the kind of epic emotional depths it thinks it does.

Durkins provides scene after scene of paranoid curiosity; however, his movie isn’t what ultimately haunts you. That responsibility is left to the Oscar-worthy Olsen, who, thankfully, has got the look.

Martha Marcy May Marlene

R
Three reels out of four
Opens tomorrow at the Ritz Five

Recommended Rental

Crazy, Stupid, Love

PG-13
Available Tuesday

Its all-roads-converged climax may render it as contrived and packaged as a box of chocolates, but the star-studded rom com “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” still offers a buffet of fine performances and winning comic moments, with the underrated dramatic chops of Steve Carell and the underused comedic chops of Ryan Gosling standing out as highlights. Co-starring Emma Stone and Julianne Moore, it’s a film whose parts are worth the whole.

Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.