Both writer-director Sean Durkin and star Elizabeth Olsen make impressive debuts in "Martha Marcy May Marelene". The film, a Best Director award winner at Sundance, was subsequently picked up by Fox Searchlight for limited release.
A compelling character study featuring strong acting and solid writing and directing, "Martha Marcy" nonetheless is somewhat of a mixed bag and is opaque when it wants to be illusive. Durkin is to be commended for not only writing a refreshingly unpredictable story, but for shepherding a gifted cast to impressive performances. Where he is less successful is in that sticky matter of plot development.
While the film has garnered praise for its originality and for the breakout work of lead Elizabeth Olsen, it is co-star Sarah Paulsen who had me wondering why she hadn't been generating conspicuous buzz. Not only does she work expertly off of the focused Olsen, but she seems to keep her centered and is instrumental in making their scenes together the highlight of the film. Olsen is certainly exciting to watch, yet you can't help but wonder how she might have fared had she not had the evidently strong hand of Durkin and the intense work of Paulsen to ground her.
The film is at its best when it focuses on the relationships between the central characters, and seems to lose focus when Olsen's character is left to wander unscripted through the upstate New York landscape. The frequent toggling between her traumatic past as a member of a farm cult, and her present as the houseguest from hell, is an intriguing device that nonetheless underscores how the heart of the story is Olsen's inability to connect with her true self, in this case to find a place for herself in the home of her married sister, played by Paulsen.
The men in the film are not only secondary, but are varying degrees of malevolent, from John Hawkes' engrossing, sexually abusive cult leader, to the always compelling Hugh Dancy as Paulsen's yuppie spouse. Hawkes goes for the gusto in a role that is certain to bolster his rising profile, following as it does his Academy Award-nominated turn in "Winter's Bone". Here he is sinewy bordering on emaciated, and while he is carving out a promising career as a gritty character actor, he might want to consider a more sympathetic role in a film or play to better demonstrate his range, never a bad idea for an actor.
Durkin effectively establishes a suitable sense of dread regarding the sinister cult Olsen escapes from. Still, a few plot developments beg the question "why?" In particular, there is a robbery scene by cult members that results in the film's sole but distracting misstep. The most grisly act of violence in the film not only strikes as implausible, but disturbing in a film that has already made a study of the uncomfortable. The more time "Martha Marcy" spends in the present, the more rooted it is in a palpable sense of character and relationship, Durkin's evident strengths. Whenever the sisters are on screen together, "Martha Marcy" proves as captivating as any American film of this past year.
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