Martha Marcy May Marlene
Sean Durkin
Open iTunes to preview, buy, and download this movie.
Plot Summary
In her stunning feature film debut, Elizabeth Olsen delivers an electrifying, star-is-born performance in this gripping psychological thriller that is far and away one of the year’s best! After escaping from a dangerous cult and the watchful eye of its charismatic leader (Academy Award® Nominee John Hawkes), a young woman named Martha (Olsen) tries to reclaim a normal life with her family. But the haunting memories from Martha’s past trigger a chilling paranoia — and nowhere seems safe as the fragile line between her reality and delusions begin to blur.
Credits
Director
Movie Reviews from Rotten Tomatoes
TOMATOMETER
90%- Reviews Counted: 181
- Fresh: 163
- Rotten: 18
- Average Rating: 7.7/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Fresh: Shot in long, quiet takes of bucolic idylls, "Martha Marcy May Marlene" sneaks up on viewers with a barely perceptible sense of oncoming dread.
Fresh: The horror aesthetic of B-movie producer Val Lewton -- that the unseen is more frightening than the seen -- is carried to a merciless extreme in this unnerving debut feature by writer-director Sean Durkin.
Fresh: Durkin depicts a horror that some among us actually live, where the search for family leads to something familiar and dangerous.
Fresh: Olsen, in a captivating, career-making performance, makes Martha awkward and inscrutable, sexual yet innocent.
Customer Reviews
A total waste of time.
If you have trouble sleeping, forget Ambien, this will cure your sleepless nights faster than a piano dropping from the 9th floor. The pace of this film is glacial, and not in a good way. I loved Drive, which also was slow, but so moody and cool and atmospheric. This film leaves you asking all sorts of questions with nothing being answered. This is not art or insightful filmmaking, merely LAZY SCREENWRITING. We never know why a good looking girl would run away from a stable home and loving sister where she was comfortable to go live like an animal with a bunch of weirdos. If the movie had actually bothered to explain this most basic of plot holes I could have looked over it's slow pace and lack of character development, but the fact that there isn't a shred of believability sinks this mess of a film to the lowest depths of film jail. Also, Olsen's performance was subpar and it felt like she was phoning it in. Just because she takes off her clothes and stares into the camera with a glazed look on her face doesn't make her a good actor. Nice try, but no cigar. Do yourself a favor and stay away from this POS.
Really?
The trailer makes this seem like so much more than it is… But what's in the synopsis is literally all that happens. There are about two instances in the whole movie that are even somewhat provoking and interesting, while the rest just flatlines with a mediocre, boring plot. No resolve, no nothing. Just an abrupt ending to something that never even really made sense in the first place. So many questions left unanswered. I was truly disappointed in this movie. While Olsen's performance was fantastic, and the cinematography was beautiful, it has nothing else to hold the seams together. I wasted an hour and a half of my life that I'll never get back. The only time I'd recommend seeing this, if you REALLY wanted to, is if you can see it for free, or rent it at Redbox. Other than that, don't waste your time.
Watch and listen carefully
Not sure why people think the film doesn't explain itself. It explained itself very well. Very chilling and very terrifying. Oh my! Where is my soul? There are moments when you feel as if it might slip out, that you might leave it somewhere, all in the rough and the tumble, forget it in bus stations somewhere and end of up doing horrible things. Its a bit like Macbeth. Violence occurs and you actually know why. Most violent movies violence happens for thrills and chills. This is more like "Funny Games." Violence isn't cool. It just feeds the beast.
Viewers Also Bought
- Take Shelter
- Jeff Nichols
- View In iTunes
- A Dangerous Method
- David Cronenberg
- View In iTunes
- Melancholia
- Lars von Trier
- View In iTunes
- The Whistleblower
- Larysa Kondracki
- View In iTunes
- We Need to Talk About Kevin
- Lynne Ramsay
- View In iTunes
- $14.99
- Genre: Drama
- Released: 2011
- © 2011 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.
