Year: 2011
Director: Sean Durkin
Country: U.S
Language: English
Well she, she's just a picture. Martha Marcy May Marlene is one of those rare gems that accurately portrays trauma and cult. Elizabeth Olsen proves herself to be a better actress than her famous sisters as the emotionally fragile and psychologically damaged young adult known as Martha by birth, Marcy May by the charismatic yet violent cult leader played by John Hawkes, Marlene by the name all the girls in the frightening cult use to pick up the phone.
This film does not fault Martha for joining a cult, it sympathizes with her. The film begins with a shot of her frantic escape and a grim phone call to her sister Lucy. Their relationship does not sound like it’s a powerful one, there is no happiness in either party’s tone when they pick up the phone. For Martha calling Lucy is a last resort, she would rather be anywhere else but considering the danger she is in her life depends on this call. Her sister allows Martha to stay at her lakeside cottage presumably just because she is family. However, Lucy (Sarah Paulson) seems indifferent towards her younger sister, a controlling woman who has never dealt with any type of traumatic disorder in her life. Lucy’s husband Ted (Hugh Dancy) is a self absorbed British architect who sees Martha as a burden and refuses to let her “hysteria” get in the way of his projects.
Together they cannot help Martha at all, instead they make Martha feel worse by isolating her and making her feel like a mental patient. “What’s wrong with you?”, “Don’t you know any better?” Martha doesn’t know how to answer these questions as she herself is not aware that she has a disorder. She needs a professional to help her with her various increasing problems, not people who know nothing of what they’re doing. Unfortunately this is the case with many families, parents are not educated enough to know that they need to take their child’s erratic behavior seriously and in the end it seriously harms the child. Until a decade or two ago depression was seen as a joke, something that would go away in a day or two, something that could be overcome easily. Nowadays depression is acknowledged as a very serious disorder among professionals.
Martha’s unstable relationship with her sister Lucy provides an insight to why she, and so many other people, would enter a cult. Martha used to be a girl with incredibly low self esteem and self image, this “cult” preached that it was sunny, carefree and based on complete freedom where there are no authority figures to tell her what to do or tell her she wasn’t good enough. At the very beginning of her stay she was taught to do very helpful things such as caring for small children, having conversations with various members of the cult and cleaning dishes. She met the charismatic leader Patrick who wooed her with his great voice and guitar skills. It’s easy to see why her and so many other girls would be drawn to a cult like this. However as time goes on everything sunny tends to fade, Martha gets raped in her sleep by Patrick, the projected innocence of this cult is lost.
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Hawkes portrayal of Patrick may be the best villainous performance I’ve seen since Robert Michum’s role as the sly maniacal Harry Powell in Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter. He convincingly shows how easy a man like Charles Manson could gain your love and trust via sneaky mind tricks. He seems like such a nice guy that you as the film viewer have to remind yourself not to join his side. Scary enough there are still men like Hawkes and Manson lurking around, this film is a great warning that many charismatic people are not like they appear to be.
The film cuts back and forth through time to show the extent of how Martha’s trauma is increasing the longer she goes without proper treatment. Her condition gets much worse as the film progresses, in an early scene she has a major panic attack because a man serving drinks at Lucy's party looks like the cult leader she thinks may be stalking her (for all we know this “stalking” business is likely in her head). In a later scene she kicks Lucy’s husband down a flight of stairs because she is unable to sort nightmare from reality. This is the nature of trauma, this can happen to post traumatic stress disorder victims if they do not get proper treatment.
A lot of people discredit the ending for being too quick and sudden. I say it ended perfectly for a film that tries to accurately depict trauma. Victims of PTSD, even if they go to therapy and get the best professional help still may never get past their experience. They may still wake up screaming in the night, or having random flashbacks and panic attacks. Lots of Holocaust victims could never rid the horrible images in their heads and as a result committed suicide. Trauma sticks with you wherever you go, I doubt this cult leader was following Martha in the first place.
In conclusion, I feel very grateful to have seen this film. It may seem a little confusing at first, but that's forgivable as one may confuse their viewer when making a film about a traumatized person’s distorted reality. Can anybody truly understand a traumatic experiences unless they’ve gone through it themselves? Martha Marcy May Marlene is a fantastic study about the nature of cult and trauma and a great warning about wolves in sheep’s clothing. Truly an achievement for Sean Durkin, I hope to see what he makes in the future. Praise it! 5/5
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| Did I mention how much the cinematography contributes to the themes of isolation throughout the film? |
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