“Martha Marcy May Marlene” is a low-fi, slice-of-dreary-life art-house drama that exists solely to establish Elizabeth Olsen as an actor who is to be taken seriously. It succeeds. The film also succeeds at having one of the worst titles since Ben Affleck’s 1993 short film “I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal With Disney”. That is not a joke.
The film centers firmly on Martha (Olsen) who has recently escaped from a hippie cult high up in the Catskills. She calls her only living relative, her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) who takes her in. Martha doesn’t share the terrible news of her whereabouts for the last two years. Instead she folds in on herself, keeping the horrors that she witnessed and endured to herself.
The particulars of her situation on the cult farm are told parallel to the deteriorating situation with her estranged sister. What starts out as a warm, inviting environment on the farm slowly turns dark and frightening. The reason why Martha is running becomes stunningly clear. But she is now broken and unable to adapt to normal life. Will she be able to stay away or will she go running back to her makeshift “family”?
The acting is stunning and subtle. Olsen, who hits spitting images of her famous twin sisters at certain angles, is actually more reminiscent of a young Maggie Gyllenhaal in energy and talent. There is nothing flashy going on here and writer/director Sean Durkin is very content on staying true and natural. There are scenes, such as when Martha answers a phone and berates the caller, that go nowhere and really do not relate to the bigger story but we see them because we are lead to believe they “happened”. Not every element of a story has to be foreshadow.
The real beef I have with the title is that I cannot remember it. And I’ve actually put effort into memorizing it. Yet, it remains elusive. I know there is a “Martha” and a “May” in there but I lose it at the “Maylene”. That is probably because that name is not in the title of the film. I will just refer to it as the “M Name Movie with the Sister of the Olsen Sisters in it”.
This is honest art house storytelling complete with an infuriating, ambiguous ending. But it is definitely worth the 101 minutes it takes to watch. And keep a look out for Miss Elizabeth Olsen. She has found a way to be a true talent despite her pedigree.