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Monday, November 7, 2011
MOVIE REVIEW
Martha Marcy May Marlene
May Day For A Fugitive Existence In The Catskills
Elizabeth Olsen (left) as Martha and Sarah Paulson as Lucy in Sean Durkin's
"Martha Marcy May Marlene".
Fox Searchlight
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Monday,
November 7, 2011
You are running in the woods. You don't recognize the environment.
All you know is that you're running as fast as you can. At some point you
experience a colorless array of sensations, memories, feelings, thoughts and
visions, but which are which and which are real? Those questions go
unanswered in Sean Durkin's intense and arresting drama "Martha Marcy May
Marlene", now making its way around the U.S. and Canada.
Martha (Elizabeth "Lizzie" Olsen) is at the center of a mystery. She's
unsure whether she's a teacher and a leader or whether the world of the
Catskills in upstate New York is the here and now or the past. Martha has
escaped from a cult there led by Patrick (a supremely eerie John Hawkes), a cult
she's been in for about three years. This much we know for sure.
There's no prologue, just situations the director subjectively places the
audience in via the uneasy mind of the film's protagonist. The uncertainty
adds a layer of creepiness, and the jarring nature of "MMMM" simulates a
post-traumatic stress disorder and disorientation conveyed in a series of
powerfully blunt, bludgeoning edits masterfully executed by Zachary Stuart-Pontier.
Lucy (Sarah Paulson) is Martha's estranged sister, a newly-wed who seeks to
reconnect with her sister but gains mixed results. The tension between
them is as much about their class and societal differences as anything familial,
and throughout Mr. Durkin provides echoes of class tensions and environments
that feel distinctly familiar but are starkly different each time. The
director's screenplay makes everything, including events that takes place
independent of Martha up for question, or at least up for which temporal zone
the events occur in. There's a halting, dreamlike quality to several
episodes, particularly where some cult members make intrusions on the affluent.
"Martha" is a rigorous puzzle of a mind, a fragile mind that is apparently
unreliable yet ardently certain in its convictions. Jody Lee Lipes's
effective cinematography has a faded, earthen pallor, almost unfinished yet
clearly defined. There are distinct stylistic and other pushes and pulls
in many of the elements in Mr. Durkin's debut feature, and his confidence as a
director and screenwriter is abundant. He takes chances with long takes,
slow push-ins and prolonged fade-outs and fade-ins that heighten the atmosphere
and murky world we've been sitting in. (Mr. Durkin has directed videos and
short films, and made a short film with "MMMM" actor Brady Corbet about a year
or two prior that was the impetus to shooting "Martha Marcy".)
Mr. Durkin allows "MMMM" to wander and work on your mind in unsettling ways.
Like Martha we are never allowed to relax during the film and we are never
certain, even at the end, exactly where Martha is (or we) are. Wonderfully
bold, suspenseful and mesmerizing, Mr. Durkin's drama combines the terrestrial
and the psychological, blending and alienating them, then contracting those
worlds so as to eventually make them indistinguishable. Mr. Durkin gets
superb debut work from
Lizzie Olsen, whose openness and perceptiveness
as an actress allows for her total command of the big screen. Miss Olsen
gives Martha a fierce, unrelenting center.
On film Miss Olsen, 22, has acted just once prior in the yet-to-be released
"Peace, Love & Misunderstanding" with Jane Fonda, and in "MMMM" she possesses
vast confidence, wisdom and maturity in a finely nuanced and star-making
performance, the kind one expects from seasoned actors. All of the actors
on display in "MMMM" are flawless, giving away not one more iota of revelation
about their characters than is necessary. Each brings steely commitment
and intelligence to their role. Each of their characters could be your
next-door neighbor.
"MMMM" has many layers but none are influenced by sentimentality. At
virtually all times the life we see is purely Martha's much more so than it is
the film's independent embodiment or manipulation of that life. Often
rough and unruly yet oddly seamless in its fertile underpinnings, "MMMM" is
haunting and memorable. The film's jagged edges and brittle core aren't
easily embraceable or welcoming but in its various filters of truth, madness and
memories lie artifice, fantasy and deep denial. Does Martha represent
freedom from repression? From corporate and metropolitan America?
Martha will take off her clothes at an inopportune time, raising the ire of one
person, and what that certain individual does is a testament to either restraint
or a good, well-meaning heart.
Yet in "Martha Marcy May Marlene" we don't really know who or what a good heart
is. The film avoids making clear-cut judgments of any of its figures, even
those who appear to have less than good intentions. None of the characters
is empathetic enough to warrant a significant attachment; it is the deeply
troubling and conflicting worlds that we are invested in the most.
If you're a city slicker you could easily lose yourself entirely in the
countryside, especially if you are unfamiliar with it. In "Martha Marcy
May Marlene" I lost myself in the hopelessness, horror and complexity of
Martha's journey. It's a long, strange, beautiful and brilliant trip for
sure, one well worth taking.
With: Hugh Dancy, Brady Corbet, Julia Garner, Christopher Abbott, Maria Dizzia,
Louisa Krause, Lauren Molina.
"Martha Marcy May Marlene" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America for disturbing
violent and sexual content, nudity and language. The film's running time is one hour and 44
minutes.
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