Martha Marcy May Marlene
This story presents a drama of a different kind that we experience through a girl named Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) who fled after several years of living in a different culture. Martha summoned her separated sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), for help. Martha, who was living in painful memories, is trying to experience a new experience by reintegrating her with her family.
20 May 1986, Falls Church, Virginia, USA
19 June 1975, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, UK
11 September 1959, Alexandria, Minnesota, USA
29 December 1974, New Jersey, USA
March 18, 2014
Martha is a cipher in the mounting drama, but Olsen manages to give her real life with a sort of reverse charisma, curling her physical beauty into poses of aggression or loss.
March 18, 2014
A moody, atmospheric study in paranoia and tension.
March 18, 2014
In a world lacking trust, every movement seems a threat, around every corner lurks betrayal.
May 03, 2015
Durkin's swaggeringly confident film utilizes long takes and tension within compositions to conjure an all-consuming sense of unease.
January 31, 2012
Once we've got over the frustration of this promising film's abrupt ending, we're left with the feeling that you can escape a cult but you can't escape yourself.
July 03, 2016
'Martha Marcy May Marlene' is the vehicle with which the youngest Olsen sister moves out of her famous older twin siblings' shadows, and establishes herself as the serious artist of the family. She's magnificent.
November 04, 2011
A purposely disturbing portrait of a damaged psyche.
March 18, 2014
Durkin intersperses the present-day scenes with increasingly revelatory flashbacks from Martha's two years in the cult.
March 18, 2014
The beauty of Olsen's star-making performance is inarguable.
February 18, 2012
MMMM emphasizes the social and economic discrepancies between Martha's then and now, and alludes to Lucy's guilt about not being there for her younger sister in the past.
November 04, 2011
Durkin depicts a horror that some among us actually live, where the search for family leads to something familiar and dangerous.
March 18, 2014
In quiet, intimate ways, it is one of the most startling, haunting films you'll see all year.
