Martha Marcy May Marlene details

Martha Marcy May Marlene
Formats: 15 DVD, TBC Blu-ray
Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, Sarah Paulson, John Hawkes, Hugh Dancy, Brady Corbet, Louisa Krause
Director: T. Sean Durkin
Genres: Drama - Mystery, Thriller - Mystery
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Original title Martha Marcy May Marlene
Collections: Our Favourites
Name Discs
Martha Marcy May Marlene
 15 Feature

DVD Information

Run time: 2 hours
Rental release: 25 Jun 2012
Main languages: English
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LOVEFiLM Review Martha Marcy May Marlene

  • 4 stars out of 5  

    By Tom Charity from LOVEFiLM

    A creepy Indie drama that delivers a star in the making; Elizabeth Olsen deserved an Oscar-nod for her spellbinding performance.

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Most helpful review Martha Marcy May Marlene

  • A well acted, well directed film that offers few clues and even fewer answers.

    Rated - 3.5 stars  
    By Tarumatu (39 reviews) from Brighton, England , 16 Feb 2012

    THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS Show review anywayHide

    [Highly rated reviewer]

    Events are unclear from the start of Martha Martha Marcy May Marlene, the debut from director Sean Durkin. Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) escapes from a cult and returns to the only member of family she has left, her elder sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson).

    Lucy has not seen Martha in around 2 years, she instantly knows something is wrong but knows she can’t push it. Its obvious that Lucy knows her younger sister well, but we dont really know what their relationship is like together. Martha is clearly plagued by something or someone, and the story slowly starts to take shape through flashbacks of Martha’s time in the cult as well as her time with Lucy and her husband Ted (Hugh Dancy). The more paranoid Martha becomes, the more we learn about her past ordeals. Excellent camerawork and editing helps to build a mirrored transitional structure, one half of Martha’s immediate past, one half her immediate present. At times, Martha cant tell the difference between her old and new environment, and nor do we.

    The chief protagonist in Martha’s suffering is Patrick, played by John Hawkes. Similar to his Teardrop in ‘Winter’s Bone’, Patrick is even more chillingly charming and persuasive as the cult leader. One of the many creepy emotional techniques used by Patrick was to rename all the women in the cult, Marcy May in Martha’s case, as a way of establishing psychological ownership. If ever the phrase ‘never trust the quiet ones’ was meant for anyone, Patrick owns it hands down.

    Everything is broken, Martha is broken. Martha may be safer in her sisters home but she doesn’t feel it. Lucy’s presence offer little reward for Martha, its just another form of confusion and fear. Martha is a complex and often annoying person, not an easy person to sympathise with. But its too easy for us to say to her to grow up, get a job, have a relationship, be a good person, be all the things her sister is. No matter what she does she cannot escape herself. We know so little about her, she could have been traumatised all her life, who knows if her experience within the cult was even real?

    Martha Martha Marcy May Marlene is not an easy film to watch, because Martha cant find the answers, and nobody can really help her. As good as some of the acting is and as well directed, Martha Martha Marcy May Marlene is perhaps just a little too disconnected to completely engage you.
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All reviews

(99)

  • Disturbing but good.

    Rated - 3.0 stars  
    By Zebras22 (27 reviews) , 06 May 2013
    A very low key film but well acted and very disturbing. It could only happen in America where cults abound. Well wotth a watch.
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  • Indie cliches

    Rated - 2.0 stars  
    By RichieHam (2 reviews) , 21 Apr 2013
    This film featured a good central performance from Elizabeth Olsen, but otherwise it was little more than a series of undeveloped film cliches (including spontaneous skinny-dipping, recently listed in the Observer as one of the top-ten movie cliches of all time, along with the line 'try to get some sleep', which also appears in this). There wasn't much to the 'troubled' central character beyond her torpid mental confusion, while the sister and her uptight boyfriend were also 2-dimensional cut-outs. Worse, the attempt to portray the 'normal' family as just as cultish as the cult that Martha escaped from (they both give her pills, for instance), seemed clumsy and unconvincing. So, this film had an interesting premiss, but it was lost amid the movie cliches and the flat characterization.
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  • A Sensitive insight into Abuse within a Cult and the consequences

    Rated - 4.0 stars  
    By SeasideCinema (10 reviews) from Nairn , 21 Mar 2013
    Following her inculcation and grooming into a commune dominated by a charismatic leader, Martha begins to accept as normal sexual and emotional abuse. The men are in control and dominate the women. She leaves after witnessing a murder committed by a group member as the group are caught thieving from a house. She enters the life of her sister and her partner but her distorted values collide with theirs and they struggle to understand and support her. Gradually she has flashbacks and her reality begins to break down. I thought it was very sensitively scripted, acted and realistically portrayed. Gradually it emerges she and her sister have lost their parents. The sisters feelings of responsibility and guilt are well portrayed and some subtle questions are left with us about social norms and right and wrong. As well as the insight into the willingness with which Marcy accepts the abuse in order to feel loved.
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  • A film that will stay with you long after the credits roll

    Rated - 5.0 stars  
    By mattecky (46 reviews) from durham , 21 Mar 2013

    [Highly rated reviewer]

    I cannot rate this film highly enough.

    Outstanding performances from all of the cast - in particular Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes as the supremely creepy cult leader - make Durkin's thoughtful and atmospheric drama essential viewing for everyone interested in a film that does not settle for the Hollywood neat ending.

    There are moments that are incredibly hard to watch but because of the cinematography and performances you cannot not watch it.

    One of the best films of recent times.
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  • Great ending

    Rated - 5.0 stars  
    By Philshepp (2 reviews) , 14 Mar 2013
    What you all on about? The non-Hollywood ending's the best thing about it! Well acted, brilliantly written, very original. Excellent film!
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