This past weekend I was dead set on seeing Rum Diary, but I waited too long to buy tickets and they sold out. I guess even in its second week, Johnny Depp is enough to keep people rushing to the theaters. So instead I settled on seeing Martha Marcy May Marlene, which was playing at the same theater, which you probably know better as that movie starring the other Olsen sister, Elizabeth. I’d wanted to see it, but hadn’t felt I needed to see it in the theater. Now that I’ve set this movie up as a consolation prize of my weekend, lemme shower it with a lil’ praise and tell you what it’s about, because it actually is worth seeing.

Jumping back and forth in time over the course of two years, Martha Marcy May Marlene is the story of a young woman (Elizabeth Olsen) who’s just escaped from a cult and finds her way back to her older sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and Lucy’s husband Ted (Hugh Dancy) at their summer home in Connecticut. “Martha” is the young woman’s real name, “Marcy May” is the name given to her by the cult, and “Marlene” is the name all females at the compound are instructed to give when answering a phone call. Martha does not explain where she’s been for the past two years to her sister, and the film cuts back and forth between the present day (after her escape) and her time with the cult.

In the present day, Martha is having a lot of trouble reconciling herself back into the “normality” of her sister’s life and trappings of wealth. All of these scenes are ridiculously tense and charged as her sister attempts to reconnect with the cold and shut off Martha and exorcise their demons to absolutely no avail. Martha has become a permanent adolescent and in no time begins clashing with her sister, Ted and their ideals. This all comes to a head during a party Lucy throws at the home, at which Martha almost immediately freaks the fuck out.

The scenes at the cramped cult compound,  in contrast, are almost completely devoid of the sort of tension presented at Lucy’s luxurious lake home… they’re totally fucked up in their own way because of the cult’s ideals and “family” structure, but Martha’s time there is mostly cast in this odd idealistic light even when the most messed up of shit is being fed to her. Martha comes to the compound as a girl desperate for an identity and a family to take care of her, and quickly eats into the cult’s mixture of love and warped beliefs. This contrasts with the conflict of the present day scenes, where her childhood scars are keeping her from connecting with her actual family, who are desperate to do so.

Truth be told, the dichotomy between both worlds is a little too obvious, but doesn’t really detract from enjoying the film or its ability to put you on edge. It’s the sort of ambivalence and uneasiness Winter’s Bone mastered last year, but is done here just a tad less successfully. This film isn’t as character- and plot-driven as Winter’s Bone, but it also doesn’t strive to be. The plot and character development in Martha Marcy May Marlene is left mostly as a rough sketch that you can easily fill in yourself. Writer/director Sean Durkin lets the ambiance and the performances carry this film… and my, oh my, are they great performances.

Elizabeth Olsen is quite good as Martha. Her interactions with her sister Lucy and Ted are fantastic, and she’s compelling in creating a believable emotionally-scarred youth unable to cope with her past. I’m sure she’s going to have an uphill battle shedding the association with her much more famous twin siblings and the image they invoke, but it’s clear within the first 15 minutes of the film where most of the talent in the family is concentrated. She is only overshadowed by the other commonality with Winter’s Bone, John Hawkes. Hawkes delivers yet another film-stealing supporting role as Patrick, the cult’s Charles Manson-like leader, and he is both terrifying and charming. If you ever wondered how Charlie was able to control and manipulate his brood the way he did, Hawkes probably gives you the closet glimpse into the mind of Manson that anyone ever has. Honestly, if the cult scenes were left in the hands of less-skilled director and cast, this movie probably would have seemed like a History Channel special on the Manson Family, but it’s Hawkes portrayal of Patrick that transcends the film’s heavy use of that source material. He’s just such an incredibly gifted actor, but if you’ve been following his career, I’m not really telling you anything you don’t already know.

I don’t want to give away too much, as this is a thriller and worth seeing, but it doesn’t really rev up to the whole thriller aspect until the final 15 or so minutes… And while the tension is pretty taut throughout, you should be prepared for the fact that for most of its run time, this is mostly a heavy family drama.

- My Pal the Crook